Year: 2019
Communications in Computational Physics, Vol. 25 (2019), Iss. 2 : pp. 347–360
Abstract
Direct sampling of multi-dimensional systems with quantum Monte Carlo methods allows exact account of many-body effects or particle correlations. The most straightforward approach to solve the Schrödinger equation, Diffusion Monte Carlo, has been used in several benchmark cases for other methods to pursue. Its robustness is based on direct sampling of a positive probability density for diffusion in imaginary time. It has been argued that the corresponding real time diffusion can not be realised, because the corresponding oscillating complex valued distribution can not be used to drive diffusion. Here, we demonstrate that this can be done by turning the distribution piecewise positive and normalizable, and also, by using four types of walkers. This study is a proof of concept demonstration using the well-known and transparent case: one-dimensional harmonic oscillator. Furthermore, we show that our novel method can be used to find not only the ground state but also excited states and even the time evolution of a given wave function. Considering fermionic systems, this method may turn out to be feasible for finding the wave function nodes for other approaches.
Journal Article Details
Publisher Name: Global Science Press
Language: English
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4208/cicp.OA-2018-0048
Communications in Computational Physics, Vol. 25 (2019), Iss. 2 : pp. 347–360
Published online: 2019-01
AMS Subject Headings: Global Science Press
Copyright: COPYRIGHT: © Global Science Press
Pages: 14
Keywords: Path integral quantum dynamics first-principles Monte Carlo real-time.