26 July 2026 to 1 August 2026
University of Maryland, College Park
US/Eastern timezone

Neural Wavefunctions in Quantum Field Theory

30 Jul 2026, 16:30
20m
Benjamin Banneker B (Adele H. Stamp Student Union)

Benjamin Banneker B

Adele H. Stamp Student Union

3972 Campus Dr, College Park, MD 20742
Contributed talk Algorithms and artificial intelligence Algorithms and artificial intelligence

Speaker

Suryansh Rajawat (University of Maryland)

Description

We present a variational approach to quantum field theory based on wavefunctions parameterized by neural networks, as a stepping stone towards real-time and finite-density regimes, inaccessible to path-integral Monte Carlo. Working in the Hamiltonian formulation on a spatial lattice, we optimize a neural-network ansatz with variational Monte Carlo to obtain the ground-state and excited-state wavefunctions. As a proof of principle, we study the 1+1d nonlinear sigma model and reproduce its essential features: asymptotic freedom, dynamical mass generation, and the model's step-scaling curve. Although energy minimization is dominated by short-distance modes, the trained wavefunction nonetheless captures long-distance physics.

Authors

Gregory Ridgway (University of Maryland) Hersh Kumar (University of Maryland) Paulo Bedaque (University of Maryland) Suryansh Rajawat (University of Maryland)

Presentation materials

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