@article {1454, title = {Ground-State Spaces of Frustration-Free Hamiltonians}, journal = {Journal of Mathematical Physics}, volume = {53}, year = {2012}, month = {2012/01/01}, pages = {102201}, abstract = { We study the ground-state space properties for frustration-free Hamiltonians. We introduce a concept of {\textquoteleft}reduced spaces{\textquoteright} to characterize local structures of ground-state spaces. For a many-body system, we characterize mathematical structures for the set $\Theta_k$ of all the $k$-particle reduced spaces, which with a binary operation called join forms a semilattice that can be interpreted as an abstract convex structure. The smallest nonzero elements in $\Theta_k$, called atoms, are analogs of extreme points. We study the properties of atoms in $\Theta_k$ and discuss its relationship with ground states of $k$-local frustration-free Hamiltonians. For spin-1/2 systems, we show that all the atoms in $\Theta_2$ are unique ground states of some 2-local frustration-free Hamiltonians. Moreover, we show that the elements in $\Theta_k$ may not be the join of atoms, indicating a richer structure for $\Theta_k$ beyond the convex structure. Our study of $\Theta_k$ deepens the understanding of ground-state space properties for frustration-free Hamiltonians, from a new angle of reduced spaces. }, doi = {10.1063/1.4748527}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.0762v1}, author = {Jianxin Chen and Zhengfeng Ji and David Kribs and Zhaohui Wei and Bei Zeng} }