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HDF5 File Formats

This page lists the formats for the HDF5 representations of various types in the ITensors module.

HDF5 is a portable file format which has a directory structure similar to a file system. In addition to containing "groups" (= directories) and "datasets" (= files), groups can have "attributes" appended to them, which are similar to 'tags' or 'keywords'. Unless otherwise specified, integers are 64 bit and are signed (H5T_STD_I64LE) unless explicitly stated. (For example, the "id" field of the Index type is stored as an unsigned 64 bit integer (H5T_STD_U64LE).)

Each type in ITensor which is writeable to HDF5 is written to its own group, with the name of the group either specified by the user or specified to some default value when it is a subgroup of another ITensor type (for example, the Index type saves its TagSet in a subgroup named "tags").

Each group corresponding to an ITensors type always carries the following attributes:

  • "type" –- a string such as Index or TagSet specifying the information necessary to determine the type of the object saved to the HDF5 group
  • "version" –- an integer specifying the file format version used to store the data. This version is in general different from the release version of ITensors.jl. The purpose of the version number is to aid in maintaining backwards compatibility, while allowing the format to be occasionally changed.

The C++ version of ITensor uses exactly the same file formats listed below, for the purpose of interoperability with the Julia version of ITensor, even though conventions such as the "type" field values are Julia-centric.

TagSet

HDF5 file format for the ITensors.TagSet type.

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "TagSet"

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "tags" [string] = a comma separated string of the tags in the TagSet

QN

HDF5 file format for the ITensors.QN type.

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "QN"

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "names" [group] = array of strings (length 4) of names of quantum numbers
  • "vals" [group] = array of integers (length 4) of quantum number values
  • "mods" [group] = array of integers (length 4) of moduli of quantum numbers

QNBlocks

HDF5 file format for the ITensors.QNBlocks type. (Note: QNBlocks is equivalent to Vector{Pair{QN, Int64}}.)

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "QNBlocks"

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "length" [integer] = the number of blocks (length of Vector)
  • "dims" [group] = array of (integer) dimensions of each block
  • "QN[n]" [group] = these groups "QN[1]", "QN[2]", etc. correspond to the QN of each block

Index

HDF5 file format for the ITensors.Index type.

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "Index"
  • "space_type" = "Int" if the Index is a regular, dense Index or "QNBlocks" if the Index is a QNIndex (carries QN subspace information)

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "id" [unsigned integer] = id number of the Index
  • "dim" [integer] = dimension of the Index
  • "dir" [integer] = arrow direction of the Index, +1 for ITensors.Out and -1 for ITensors.In
  • "plev" [integer] = prime level of the Index
  • "tags" [group] = the TagSet of the Index

Optional Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "space" [group] = if the "space_type" attribute is "QNBlocks", this group is present and represents a QNBlocks object

IndexSet

HDF5 file format for types in the Union type ITensors.Indices which includes IndexSet and tuples of Index objects.

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "IndexSet"

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "length" [integer] = number of indices
  • "index_n" [group] = for n=1 to n=length each of these groups contains an Index

ITensor

HDF5 file format for the ITensors.ITensor type.

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "ITensor"

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "inds" [group] = indices of the ITensor
  • "storage" [group] = storage of the ITensor (note that some earlier versions of ITensors.jl may call this group "store")

NDTensors.Dense

HDF5 file format for objects which are subtypes of ITensors.NDTensors.Dense.

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "Dense{Float64}" or "Dense{ComplexF64}"

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "data" = array of either real or complex values (in the same dataset format used by the HDF5.jl library for storing Vector{Float64} or Vector{ComplexF64})

NDTensors.BlockSparse

HDF5 file format for objects which are subtypes of ITensors.NDTensors.BlockSparse.

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "BlockSparse{Float64}" or "BlockSparse{ComplexF64}"

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "ndims" [integer] = number of dimensions (order) of the tensor
  • "offsets" = block offset data flattened into an array of integers
  • "data" = array of either real or complex values (in the same dataset format used by the HDF5.jl library for storing Vector{Float64} or Vector{ComplexF64})

MPS

HDF5 file format for ITensors.MPS

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "MPS"

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "length" [integer] = number of tensors of the MPS
  • "rlim" [integer] = right orthogonality limit
  • "llim" [integer] = left orthogonality limit
  • "MPS[n]" [group,ITensor] = each of these groups, where n=1,...,length, stores the nth ITensor of the MPS

MPO

HDF5 file format for ITensors.MPO

Attributes:

  • "version" = 1
  • "type" = "MPO"

Datasets and Subgroups:

  • "length" [integer] = number of tensors of the MPO
  • "rlim" [integer] = right orthogonality limit
  • "llim" [integer] = left orthogonality limit
  • "MPO[n]" [group,ITensor] = each of these groups, where n=1,...,length, stores the nth ITensor of the MPO