Continuous Matrix Product States for Inhomogeneous Quantum Field Theories: a Basis-Spline Approach

Continuous Matrix Product States (cMPS) are powerful variational ansatz states for ground states of continuous quantum field theories in (1+1) dimension. In this paper we introduce a novel parametrization of the cMPS wave function based on basis-spline functions, which we coin spline-based MPS (spMPS), and develop novel regauging techniques for inhomogeneous cMPS. We extend a recently developed ground-state optimization algorithm for translational invariant cMPS [M. Ganahl, J. Rinc'on, G.Vidal. Phys.Rev.Lett. 118,220402 (2017)] to the case of inhomogeneous cMPS and, as proof-of-principle, use it to obtain the ground-state of a gas of Lieb-Liniger bosons in a periodic potential. The proposed method provides a first working implementation of a cMPS optimization for non-translational invariant continuous Hamiltonians.