Dr.Olav Syljuåsen
NORDITA

"Continuous-time Diffusion Monte Carlo Algorithm for Quantum Lattice Models"

Abstract:
An important application of numerical methods is to test theoretical predictions of simple, but hard-to-solve physical models. The Monte Carlo method has proven to be a very useful tool to simulate low dimensional "non-fermionic" quantum lattice models. Yet there are still obstacles to overcome.
I will review the current state-of-the-art quantum Monte Carlo method, the Directed-loop algorithm, and illustrate why this algorithm is inefficient in simulating certain class of models, of which one member is the quantum dimer model.
To overcome this difficulty a continuous-time Diffusion Monte Carlo method(see cond-mat/0408565) has recently been developed. This method will be described in detail and results for the quantum dimer model will be shown.