Renormalization method for proving frustration-free local spin chains are gapped

Abstract: Key properties of a physical system depend on whether it is gapped, i.e. whether its spectral gap has a positive lower bound that is independent of system size. In quantum information theory, the question of whether a system is gapped has essential computational significance as well. Here, we introduce a rigorous renormalization method to prove that a spin chain is gapped. This approach exploits the fact that ground states of gapped systems exhibit decaying correlations. We apply the method to show that two interesting models are gapped, successfully completing proofs even where the previously established methods are inconclusive.