Continuous-time parametrization of neural quantum states for quantum dynamics

Abstract: Neural quantum states are a promising framework for simulating many-body quantum dynamics, as they can represent states with volume-law entanglement. As time evolves, the neural network parameters are typically optimized at discrete time steps to approximate the wave function at each point in time. Given the differentiability of the wave function stemming from the Schr\"odinger equation, here we impose a time-continuous and differentiable parameterization of the neural network by expressing its parameters as linear combinations of temporal basis functions with trainable, time-independent coefficients. We test this ansatz, referred to as the smooth neural quantum state ($s$-NQS) with a loss function defined over an extended time interval, under a sudden quench of a non-integrable many-body quantum spin chain. We demonstrate accurate time evolution using simply a restricted Boltzmann machine as the instantaneous neural network architecture. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the parameterization is efficient in the number of parameters and the smooth neural quantum state allows us to initialize and evaluate the wave function at times not included in the training set, both within and beyond the training interval.