Boundary effects in the density-matrix renormalization group calculation

We investigate the boundary effect of the density matrix renormalization group calculation (DMRG), which is an artifactual induction of symmetry-breaking pseudo-long-range order and takes place when the long-range quantum fluctuation cannot be properly included in the variational wave function due to numerical limitation. The open boundary condition often used in DMRG suffers from the boundary effect the most severely, which is directly reflected in the distinct spatial modulations of the local physical quantity. By contrast, the other boundary conditions such as the periodic one or the sin(2)-deformed interaction [A. Gendiar, R. Krcmar, and T. Nishino, Prog. Theor. Phys. 122, 953 (2009)] keep spatial homogeneity, and are relatively free from the boundary effect. By comparing the numerical results of those various boundary conditions, we show that the open boundary condition sometimes gives unreliable results even after the finite-size scaling. We conclude that the examination of the boundary condition dependence is required besides the usual treatment based on the system size or accuracy dependence in cases where the long-range quantum fluctuation is important.