Variational contractions of projected entangled-pair states

The norms or expectation values of infinite projected entangled-pair states (PEPS) cannot be computed exactly, and approximation algorithms have to be applied. In the last years, many efficient algorithms have been devised -- the corner transfer matrix renormalization group (CTMRG) or variational uniform matrix product state (VUMPS) algorithm are the most common -- but it remains unclear whether they always lead to the same results. In this paper, we identify a subclass of PEPS for which we can reformulate the contraction as a variational problem that is algorithm independent. We use this variational feature to assess the accuracy of CTMRG and VUMPS contractions. Moreover, we devise a new variational contraction scheme, which we can extend to compute general $N$-point correlation functions.