CausalTensor - A Flexible Tensor for Dynamic Data

The CausalTensor provides a flexible, multi-dimensional array (tensor) backed by a single, contiguous Vec<T>. It is designed for efficient numerical computations, featuring a stride-based memory layout that supports broadcasting for element-wise binary operations. It offers a comprehensive API for shape manipulation, element access, and common reduction operations like sum and mean, making it a versatile tool for causal modeling and other data-intensive tasks.

Docs

Scalar generality (tensor-network layer)

Precision and scalar kind are a parameter throughout the tensor-train / MPS–MPO layer, via the [deep_causality_num::ConjugateScalar] bridge trait (arithmetic + conjugation + a real modulus). One generic implementation serves three families:

Scalar	What you get
`f32` / `f64` / `Float106`	the ordinary real stack at three precisions (`Float106` is double-double, ~32 digits)
`Dual<f64>`	forward-mode automatic differentiation — derivatives flow through TT-SVD, MPO apply, and the solvers by the chain rule
`Complex<f64>`	the genuine Hermitian stack: conjugated inner products `⟨a\|b⟩ = Σ āᵢ bᵢ`, real singular values, unitary `U`/`V`/`Q`, complex Givens/Householder kernels, and a complex Hermitian DMRG eigensolver

CausalTensor

CausalTensor is straightforward to use. You create it from a flat vector of data and a vector defining its shape.

use deep_causality_tensor::CausalTensor;

fn main() {
    // 1. Create a 2x3 tensor.
    let data = vec![1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6];
    let shape = vec![2, 3];
    let tensor = CausalTensor::new(data, shape).unwrap();
    println!("Original Tensor: {}", tensor);

    // 2. Get an element
    let element = tensor.get(&[1, 2]).unwrap();
    assert_eq!(*element, 6);
    println!("Element at [1, 2]: {}", element);

    // 3. Reshape the tensor
    let reshaped = tensor.reshape(&[3, 2]).unwrap();
    assert_eq!(reshaped.shape(), &[3, 2]);
    println!("Reshaped to 3x2: {}", reshaped);

    // 4. Perform tensor-scalar addition
    let added = &tensor + 10;
    assert_eq!(added.as_slice(), &[11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16]);
    println!("Tensor + 10: {}", added);

    // 5. Perform tensor-tensor addition with broadcasting
    let t1 = CausalTensor::new(vec![1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], vec![2, 3]).unwrap();
    // A [1, 3] tensor...
    let t2 = CausalTensor::new(vec![10, 20, 30], vec![1, 3]).unwrap(); 
    // ...is broadcasted across the rows of the [2, 3] tensor.
    let result = (&t1 + &t2).unwrap();
    assert_eq!(result.as_slice(), &[11, 22, 33, 14, 25, 36]);
    println!("Tensor-Tensor Add with Broadcast: {}", result);

    // 6. Sum all elements in the tensor (full reduction)
    let sum = tensor.sum_axes(&[]).unwrap();
    assert_eq!(sum.as_slice(), &[21]);
    println!("Sum of all elements: {}", sum);
}

Einstein Sum (ein_sum)

The ein_sum function provides a powerful and flexible way to perform various tensor operations, including matrix multiplication, dot products, and more, by constructing an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) of operations.

use deep_causality_tensor::CausalTensor;
use deep_causality_tensor::types::causal_tensor::op_tensor_ein_sum::EinSumOp;

fn main() {
    // Example: Matrix Multiplication using ein_sum
    let lhs_data = vec![1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0];
    let lhs_tensor = CausalTensor::new(lhs_data, vec![2, 2]).unwrap();

    let rhs_data = vec![5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0];
    let rhs_tensor = CausalTensor::new(rhs_data, vec![2, 2]).unwrap();

    // Construct the AST for matrix multiplication
    let mat_mul_ast = EinSumOp::mat_mul(lhs_tensor, rhs_tensor);

    // Execute the Einstein summation
    let result = CausalTensor::ein_sum(&mat_mul_ast).unwrap();

    println!("Result of Matrix Multiplication:\n{:?}", result);
    // Expected: CausalTensor { data: [19.0, 22.0, 43.0, 50.0], shape: [2, 2], strides: [2, 1] }
    
     // Example: Dot Product
    let vec1_data = vec![1.0, 2.0, 3.0];
    let vec1_shape = vec![3];
    let vec1_tensor = CausalTensor::new(vec1_data, vec1_shape).unwrap();

    let vec2_data = vec![4.0, 5.0, 6.0];
    let vec2_shape = vec![3];
    let vec2_tensor = CausalTensor::new(vec2_data, vec2_shape).unwrap();
    
    // Execute the Einstein summation for dot product 
    let result_dot_prod = CausalTensor::ein_sum(&EinSumOp::dot_prod(vec1_tensor, vec2_tensor)).unwrap();
    println!("Result of Dot Product:\n{:?}", result_dot_prod);
}

Functional Composition

Causal Tensor implements a Higher Kinded Type via the deep_causality_haft crate as Witness Type. When imported, the CausalTensorWitness type allows monadic composition and abstract type programming. For example, one can write generic functions that uniformly process tensors and other types:

use deep_causality_haft::{Functor, HKT, OptionWitness, ResultWitness};
use deep_causality_tensor::{CausalTensor, CausalTensorWitness};

fn triple_value<F>(m_a: F::Type<i32>) -> F::Type<i32>
where
    F: Functor<F> + HKT,
{
    F::fmap(m_a, |x| x * 3)
}

fn main() {
    println!("--- Functor Example: Tripling values in different containers ---");

    // Using triple_value with Option
    let opt = Some(5);
    println!("Original Option: {:?}", opt);
    let proc_opt = triple_value::<OptionWitness>(opt);
    println!("Doubled Option: {:?}", proc_opt);
    assert_eq!(proc_opt, Some(15));

    // Using triple_value with Result
    let res = Ok(5);
    println!("Original Result: {:?}", res);
    let proc_res = triple_value::<ResultWitness<i32>>(res);
    println!("Doubled Result: {:?}", proc_res);
    assert_eq!(proc_res, Ok(15));

    // Using triple_value with CausalTensor
    let tensor = CausalTensor::new(vec![1, 2, 3], vec![3]).unwrap();
    println!("Original CausalTensor: {:?}", tensor);
    let proc_tensor = triple_value::<CausalTensorWitness>(tensor);
    println!("Doubled CausalTensor: {:?}", proc_tensor);
    assert_eq!(proc_tensor.data(), &[3, 6, 9]);
}

Functional composition of HKS tensors works best via an effect system that captures side effects and provides detailed errors and logs for each processing step. In the example below, Tensors are composed and the container MyMonadEffect3 capture the final tensor value, optional errors, and detailed logs from each processing step.

    // ... Truncated  
      
    // 4. Chain Operations using Monad::bind
    println!("Processing steps...");
    let final_effect = MyMonadEffect3::bind(initial_effect, step1);
    let final_effect = MyMonadEffect3::bind(final_effect, step2);
    let final_effect = MyMonadEffect3::bind(final_effect, step3);

    println!();
    println!("--- Final Result ---");
    println!("Final CausalTensor: {:?}", final_effect.value);
    println!("Error: {:?}", final_effect.error);
    println!("Logs: {:?}", final_effect.logs);

For complex data processing pipelines, these information are invaluable for debugging and optimization. Also, in case more detailed information are required i.e. processing time for each step, then an Effect Monad of arity 4 or 5 can be used to capture additional fields at each step.

CausalTensorTrain

CausalTensorTrain is a tensor train (matrix-product state / MPS): a high-order tensor stored as a chain of rank-3 cores, so the element count grows linearly with the order instead of exponentially. It is the curse-of-dimensionality escape hatch for the rest of the library. A train is built from a dense tensor by TT-SVD (or from an oracle, without ever forming the dense tensor, via cross), compressed with an explicit [Truncation] policy, and queried with eval/norm/inner without re-materializing it. The companion CausalTensorTrainOperator is a matrix-product operator (MPO) that maps one train to another. The behaviour lives on the TensorTrain / TensorTrainOperator traits; constructors stay inherent on the concrete types.

use deep_causality_tensor::{CausalTensor, CausalTensorTrain, TensorTrain, Truncation};

fn main() {
    // 1. A dense order-3 tensor of shape [2, 3, 2].
    let data: Vec<f64> = (0..12).map(|i| (i as f64).sin() + 1.5).collect();
    let dense = CausalTensor::new(data, vec![2, 3, 2]).unwrap();

    // 2. Factor it into a tensor train (MPS) by TT-SVD. `Truncation` is the compression policy;
    //    `by_bond` caps the bond dimension (here large enough to be lossless).
    let exact = Truncation::<f64>::by_bond(4096).unwrap();
    let tt = CausalTensorTrain::from_dense(&dense, &exact).unwrap();
    println!("bond dimensions: {:?}", tt.bond_dims());

    // 3. Contracting back to dense is exact when nothing was truncated.
    let back = tt.to_dense().unwrap();
    assert_eq!(back.shape(), &[2, 3, 2]);

    // 4. Evaluate a single logical entry A[1, 2, 0] without going dense.
    let entry = tt.eval(&[1, 2, 0]).unwrap();
    println!("A[1,2,0] = {entry}");

    // 5. Frobenius norm and inner product via transfer-matrix contraction (⟨A|A⟩ == ‖A‖²).
    let norm = tt.norm().unwrap();
    let ip = tt.inner(&tt).unwrap();
    println!("‖A‖ = {norm}, ⟨A|A⟩ = {ip}");

    // 6. Lossy recompression: round down to bond dimension ≤ 2.
    let small = Truncation::<f64>::by_bond(2).unwrap();
    let rounded = tt.round(&small).unwrap();
    println!("rounded bond dimensions: {:?}", rounded.bond_dims());
}

A matrix-product operator acts on a train (apply = MPO·MPS) and composes with another operator (compose = MPO·MPO):

use deep_causality_tensor::{
    CausalTensor, CausalTensorTrain, CausalTensorTrainOperator, TensorTrain, TensorTrainOperator,
    Truncation,
};

fn main() {
    let trunc = Truncation::<f64>::by_bond(4096).unwrap();

    // A 2-site state over physical dimensions [2, 2].
    let x = CausalTensorTrain::from_dense(
        &CausalTensor::new(vec![1.0, 0.5, -0.5, 2.0], vec![2, 2]).unwrap(),
        &trunc,
    )
    .unwrap();

    // The identity MPO over the same site structure: apply(identity, x) == x.
    let id = CausalTensorTrainOperator::<f64>::identity(&[2, 2]);
    let y = id.apply(&x, &trunc).unwrap();

    assert_eq!(y.to_dense().unwrap().as_slice(), x.to_dense().unwrap().as_slice());
    println!("MPO·MPS bond dimensions: {:?}", y.bond_dims());
}

Beyond these, the layer provides QR/SVD canonicalization, cross (build a train from an oracle), and a solve module — linear (AMEn A·x = b), fit (ALS completion from samples), eigen (DMRG3S ground state), and tdvp_step (two-site time evolution). Every operation is generic over the scalar via [deep_causality_num::ConjugateScalar], so the same code runs at f32/f64/Float106, forward-mode AD (Dual), and the full Hermitian complex stack (Complex).

Performance

The following benchmarks were run on a CausalTensor of size 100x100 (10,000 f64 elements).

CausalTensor Performance

Operation	Time	Notes
`tensor_get`	~2.31 ns	Accessing a single element.
`tensor_reshape`	~2.46 µs	Metadata only, but clones data in the test.
`tensor_scalar_add`	~4.95 µs	Element-wise addition with a scalar.
`tensor_tensor_add_broadcast`	~46.67 µs	Element-wise addition with broadcasting.
`tensor_sum_full_reduction`	~10.56 µs	Summing all 10,000 elements of the tensor.

Technical Details

Sample size: 10 measurements per benchmark
All benchmarks were run with random access patterns to simulate real-world usage

Key Observations

Element Access (get): Access is extremely fast, demonstrating the efficiency of the stride-based index calculation.
Shape Manipulation (reshape): This operation is very fast as it only adjusts metadata (shape and strides) and clones the underlying data vector.
Arithmetic Operations: Performance is excellent. The optimized binary_op function provides efficient broadcasting for tensor-tensor operations, avoiding allocations in hot loops.

CausalTensorTrain Performance

f64 median times on small, deliberately-sized instances (the whole tensor-network bench suite runs in seconds). Each row is a Criterion bench_function; the Size column gives the instance shape.

Stage 0 — numerical kernels

Operation	Time	Size	Notes
`svd_truncated`	~1.35 ms	48 × 48	One-sided Jacobi truncated thin-SVD.
`qr`	~62 µs	48 × 48	Householder QR — the cheap canonicalization gauge.

Stage 1 — core tensor-train algebra (order-4 train, physical dim 4 → 256 dense entries)

Operation	Time	Notes
`eval`	~189 ns	Single entry, no dense materialization.
`marginalize`	~1.04 µs	Sum out one physical site.
`add`	~1.18 µs	Exact (bond dimensions add).
`norm` / `inner`	~6.6 µs	Transfer-matrix contraction.
`canonicalize_at`	~7.0 µs	Mixed-canonical gauge via QR.
`hadamard`	~22 µs	Elementwise product (bond dimensions multiply).
`from_dense` (TT-SVD)	~55 µs	Left-to-right truncated-SVD sweep.
`round`	~73 µs	Left-canonicalize + R→L truncated-SVD sweep.

Stage 2 — MPO and TT-cross (operator: 3 sites, dim 2; cross: 4 sites, dim 3, rank-1 oracle)

Operation	Time	Notes
`integrate`	~95 ns	Per-site weight contraction.
`mpo_from_dense`	~3.9 µs	Operator TT-SVD.
`mpo_apply` (MPO·MPS)	~4.0 µs	The CFD/time-step kernel.
`mpo_compose` (MPO·MPO)	~14.5 µs	Operator product.
`cross`	~39 µs	Build a train from an oracle without going dense.

Stage 2c/3 — solvers (small instances; all four share the alternating-sweep engine)

Operation	Time	Notes
`linear` (AMEn)	~4.9 µs	Rank-adaptive `A·x = b`.
`fit` (ALS)	~6.7 µs	TT completion from samples.
`tdvp_step`	~29 µs	Two-site time evolution (one step).
`eigen` (DMRG3S)	~34 µs	Ground-state eigenpair.

Key Observations

The format buys linear, not exponential, scaling. A 256-entry order-4 tensor is constructed, recompressed, normed, and queried in tens of microseconds; eval reads a single logical entry in ~189 ns without ever forming the dense tensor — the reason the tensor-train layer exists.
SVD is the cost center; QR is the gauge of choice. svd_truncated (~1.35 ms at 48 × 48) dominates everything that compounds over it (from_dense, round). qr is ~20× cheaper, which is exactly why canonicalization sweeps use QR rather than SVD.
Cheap algebra, costlier compression. Operations that only contract or grow bonds (eval, marginalize, add, integrate) are sub-microsecond to low-microsecond; the truncating operations (from_dense, round, hadamard) cost more because each carries an SVD/normalization.
Solvers are microseconds on small problems because all four (linear/fit/eigen/tdvp) ride the same one-/two-site sweep engine; their cost grows as sweeps · n · r³, so they stay fast while the bond dimension r stays small.

Deterministic vs. randomized rounding

round (and every truncating op) can run an opt-in adaptive randomized range-finder SVD (Truncation::randomized(oversample, seed)) instead of the default deterministic one-sided Jacobi. Its cost is O(rows·cols·ℓ) versus the deterministic O(min(rows,cols)³) Jacobi, so the win is conditional: it needs the truncated matrix to be large and low-rank. Two regimes bracket it.

Small unfoldings (deterministic wins). Rounding an order-4 [8,8,8,8] train (interior bond 9) at by_tol(1e-8):

`round` strategy	Time
deterministic	~112 µs
randomized (`oversample = 8`)	~124 µs

Here randomized is ~10 % slower — the unfoldings are tiny, Jacobi converges in a few sweeps, and the sketch/QR overhead does not amortize.

Large low-rank matrices (randomized wins, hugely). The truncated SVD of a rank-20 S×S matrix (the kernel every rounding step calls), deterministic Jacobi vs. randomized range-finder:

`S × S`	rank	deterministic	randomized	speedup
100 × 100	20	17.1 ms	0.45 ms	38×
200 × 200	20	135 ms	1.51 ms	89×
400 × 400	20	1.44 s	5.25 ms	274×
700 × 700	20	7.63 s	15.3 ms	498×
1000 × 1000	20	29.1 s	31.2 ms	935×

The gap widens ~linearly with size because the Jacobi SVD is O(S³) regardless of rank while the range-finder is O(S²·ℓ) with ℓ ≈ rank + oversample. (Part of this gap is that our deterministic Jacobi does not shortcut low rank; it is the accuracy-first default, not a rank-revealing method.)

TT round() — randomize-then-orthogonalize. Naively swapping the SVD kernel inside the existing round() does not help (a measured breakdown showed ~92 % of round's time is the deterministic left-canonicalization QR sweep, which already shrinks the bonds before any SVD runs). So the randomized round instead uses the literature's randomize-then-orthogonalize scheme (Al Daas–Ballard 2023): it sketches the train against random Gaussians via a structured (Khatri-Rao) right-to-left contraction, then orthogonalizes only the small ℓ-column sketched basis — never canonicalizing the full high-bond train. Rounding a sum of k copies of a bond-6 train over [16,16,16,16] (the "sum of TT-tensors" regime — large input bond, output rank 6):

input bond	deterministic `round`	randomized `round`	speedup
24	4.85 ms	4.26 ms	1.1×
48	28.7 ms	4.37 ms	6.6×
96	175 ms	5.23 ms	33×
144	370 ms	6.38 ms	58×

The randomized round time stays nearly flat (~4–6 ms) as the input bond grows, while the deterministic round grows cubically — so the speedup widens with bond (1.1× → 58×), matching the 20–50× the papers report for rounding sums of TT-tensors. Both strategies produce the same result to the requested tolerance (verified), and the deterministic kernel stays the default. Reproduce with cargo test --release --test mod -- --ignored svd_crossover_study tt_round_compressing_study.

Hardware & precision

Scalar: f64
Reproduce with cargo bench -p deep_causality_tensor --bench bench_causal_tensor.

Technical Details

Sample size: 10 measurements per benchmark
All benchmarks were run with random access patterns to simulate real-world usage

Hardware & OS

Architecture: ARM64 (Apple Silicon, M3 Max)
OS: macOS 26.5

Technical Implementation

Strides

The core of CausalTensor is its stride-based memory layout. For a given shape (e.g., [d1, d2, d3]), the strides represent the number of elements to skip in the flat data vector to move one step along a particular dimension. For a row-major layout, the strides would be [d2*d3, d3, 1]. This allows the tensor to calculate the flat index for any multi-dimensional index [i, j, k] with a simple dot product: i*strides[0] + j*strides[1] + k*strides[2].

Broadcasting

Binary operations support broadcasting, which follows rules similar to those in libraries like NumPy. When operating on two tensors, CausalTensor compares their shapes dimension by dimension (from right to left). Two dimensions are compatible if:

They are equal.
One of them is 1.

The smaller tensor's data is conceptually "stretched" or repeated along the dimensions where its size is 1 to match the larger tensor's shape, without actually copying the data. The optimized binary_op implementation achieves this by manipulating how it calculates the flat index for each tensor inside the computation loop.

API Overview

The CausalTensor API is designed to be comprehensive and intuitive:

Constructor: CausalTensor::new(data: Vec<T>, shape: Vec<usize>)
Inspectors: shape(), num_dim(), len(), is_empty(), as_slice()
Indexing: get(), get_mut()
Shape Manipulation: reshape(), ravel()
Reduction Operations: sum_axes(), mean_axes(), arg_sort()
Arithmetic: Overloaded +, -, *, / operators for both tensor-scalar and tensor-tensor operations.

References

The tensor-network (tensor-train / MPS–MPO) layer implements the following algorithms. Each is also cited in the doc comment of the source file where it is implemented.

Decomposition & numerics

I. V. Oseledets, "Tensor-train decomposition," SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 33(5), 2295–2317 (2011). doi:10.1137/090752286 — TT format and sequential-SVD construction (from_dense).
J. Demmel and K. Veselić, "Jacobi's method is more accurate than QR," SIAM J. Matrix Anal. Appl. 13(4), 1204–1245 (1992). doi:10.1137/0613074 — high-relative-accuracy one-sided Jacobi SVD.
G. H. Golub and C. F. Van Loan, Matrix Computations, 4th ed. (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2013), §5.2 — Householder QR factorization (canonicalization).

Cross approximation

I. V. Oseledets and E. E. Tyrtyshnikov, "TT-cross approximation for multidimensional arrays," Linear Algebra Appl. 432(1), 70–88 (2010). doi:10.1016/j.laa.2009.07.024 — black-box TT-cross (cross, apply_nonlinear).
S. A. Goreinov, I. V. Oseledets, D. V. Savostyanov, E. E. Tyrtyshnikov, and N. L. Zamarashkin, "How to find a good submatrix," in Matrix Methods: Theory, Algorithms and Applications (World Scientific, 2010), pp. 247–256 — the maxvol index-selection principle.

Solvers

S. Holtz, T. Rohwedder, and R. Schneider, "The alternating linear scheme for tensor optimization in the tensor train format," SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 34(2), A683–A713 (2012). doi:10.1137/100818893 — one-site ALS (solve::fit).
L. Grasedyck, M. Kluge, and S. Krämer, "Variants of alternating least squares tensor completion in the tensor train format," SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 37(5), A2424–A2450 (2015). doi:10.1137/130942401 — ALS tensor completion from samples (solve::fit).
S. V. Dolgov and D. V. Savostyanov, "Alternating minimal energy methods for linear systems in higher dimensions," SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 36(5), A2248–A2271 (2014). doi:10.1137/140953289 (arXiv:1301.6068) — AMEn rank-adaptive linear solver (solve::linear).

Roadmap (Stage 3+)

C. Hubig, I. P. McCulloch, U. Schollwöck, and F. A. Wolf, "Strictly single-site DMRG algorithm with subspace expansion," Phys. Rev. B 91, 155115 (2015). doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.91.155115 (arXiv:1501.05504) — DMRG3S eigensolver.
J. Gleis, J.-W. Li, and J. von Delft, "Controlled bond expansion for density matrix renormalization group ground state search at single-site costs," Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 246402 (2023) (arXiv:2207.14712); and CBE-TDVP, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 026401 (2024) — controlled bond expansion.
S. Paeckel, T. Köhler, A. Swoboda, S. R. Manmana, U. Schollwöck, and C. Hubig, "Time-evolution methods for matrix-product states," Ann. Phys. 411, 167998 (2019). doi:10.1016/j.aop.2019.167998 (arXiv:1901.05824) — TDVP and time-evolution review.

Contribution

Contributions are welcomed especially related to documentation, example code, and fixes. If unsure where to start, just open an issue and ask.

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in deep_causality by you, shall be licensed under the MIT licence, without any additional terms or conditions.

Licence

This project is licensed under the MIT license.

Security

For details about security, please read the security policy.

deep_causality_tensor 0.5.1

CausalTensor - A Flexible Tensor for Dynamic Data

Docs

Scalar generality (tensor-network layer)

CausalTensor

Einstein Sum (ein_sum)

Functional Composition

CausalTensorTrain

Performance

CausalTensor Performance

Technical Details

Key Observations

CausalTensorTrain Performance

Key Observations

Deterministic vs. randomized rounding

Hardware & precision

Technical Details

Hardware & OS

Technical Implementation

Strides

Broadcasting

API Overview

References

Contribution

Licence

Security