Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2025 / iii / Paper 343 / 2 / d

Cutting an open-boundary matrix product state across one virtual bond of dimension $\chi$ gives Schmidt rank at most $\chi$, so its entanglement entropy obeysA periodic interval cuts two bonds and obeys $S(A)\le 2\log \chi$. Since the boundary of a one-dimensional interval has a constant number of points, this is an area law.

For a projected entangled pair state, a bipartition crossing $n_{\partial }$ virtual bonds has Schmidt rank at most ${\chi }^{n_{\partial }}$. The tensor-network area-law bound is thereforeBecause $n_{\partial }$ is proportional to the lattice boundary area, every fixed-bond-dimension PEPS satisfies an area law.