Publication Date

1998

Journal or Book Title

Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics

Abstract

We show how the worldline quantum Monte Carlo procedure, which usually relies on an artificial time discretization, can be formulated directly in continuous time, rendering the scheme exact. For an arbitrary system with discrete Hilbert space, none of the configuration update procedures contain small parameters. We find that the most effective update strategy involves the motion of worldline discontinuities (both in space and time), i.e., the evaluation of the Green’s function. Being based on local updates only, our method nevertheless allows one to work with the grand canonical ensemble and nonzero winding numbers, and to calculate any dynamical correlation function as easily as expectation values of, e.g., total energy. The principles found for the update in continuous time generalize to any continuous variables in the space of discrete virtual transitions, and in principle also make it possible to simulate continuous systems exactly.

Comments

This is the pre-published version harvested from ArXiv. The published version is located at http://www.springerlink.com/content/dlkm23261779111m/

Pages

310-321

Volume

87

Issue

2

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