The White group uses and develops density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) and other tensor network methods to study quantum systems in condensed matter and quantum chemistry. Professor White invented DMRG while an Assistant Professor at UCI in 1992. Now DMRG is recognized as the most powerful computational method for solving 1D quantum systems. The field of tensor networks for quantum systems is a generalization of DMRG that is having big impacts from string theory to machine learning.
In condensed matter physics, we apply DMRG to quantum spin systems (like the kagome system, on the Science cover) and to electronic models, used to understand the high temperature superconductors. In quantum chemistry, our group initiated the first ab initio DMRG algorithms, and we are now working on new, potentially more powerful version, called grid-gaussian DMRG (GGDMRG).
Our group developed and maintains the ITensor software library for tensor network and DMRG calculations–perhaps the leading tensor network software library.