Density-matrix spectra of solvable fermionic systems

Abstract

We consider noninteracting fermions on a lattice and give a general result for the reduced density matrices corresponding to parts of the system. This allows to calculate their spectra, which are essential in the density-matrix renormalization group method, by diagonalizing small matrices. We discuss these spectra and their typical features for various fermionic quantum chains and for the two-dimensional tight-binding model.