Symplectic split-operator propagators from tridiagonalized multi-mode bosonic Hilbert spaces for Bose–Hubbard Hamiltonians

In this methods paper, we show how to tridiagonalize two families of bosonic multimode systems: optomechanical and Bose–Hubbard Hamiltonians. Using tools from number theory, we devise a rendering of these systems in the form of exact D × D tridiagonal symmetric matrices with real-valued entries. Such matrices can subsequently be exactly diagonalized using specialized sparse-matrix algorithms that need on the order of D ln(D) steps. This makes it possible to describe systems with much larger numbers of basis states than available to date. It also allows for efficient diagonal representation of large, accurate, symplectic split-operator propagators for which we moreover show that the required basis changes can be implemented by simple re-indexing, at marginal computational cost.