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arXiv:0905.0124 · Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physics

Mitigating the sign problem for non-relativistic fermions on the lattice

Mark Alford, Andrei B. Kryjevski

Published Jan 15, 2010• 4 citations
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Abstract

We study the fermion sign problem in a theory of non-relativistic fermions with a spin-independent repulsive interaction. We work in polar co-ordinates in momentum space, which makes it straightforward to keep only the low-energy degrees of freedom close to the Fermi surface. This is sufficient for the purpose of calculating many physically important low-energy observables. We find indications that the sign problem in this effective theory will be weaker than in the full theory, so low-energy properties of the theory could be calculated by modifying the action to make it positive semi-definite and including reweighting factors in the observables. We discuss suitable modifications of the action, and describe a possible lattice realization of the polar momentum space formulation of the theory.

DOI
10.1088/0954-3899/37/2/025002

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We study the fermion sign problem in a theory of non-relativistic fermions with a spin-independent repulsive interaction. We work in polar co-ordinates in momentum space, which makes it straightforward to keep only the low-energy degrees of freedom close to the Fermi surface. This is sufficient for the purpose of calculating many physically important low-energy observables. We find indications that the sign problem in this effective theory will be weaker than in the full theory, so low-energy properties of the theory could be calculated by modifying the action to make it positive semi-definite and including reweighting factors in the observables. We discuss suitable modifications of the action, and describe a possible lattice realization of the polar momentum space formulation of the theory.
Standard lattice formulations of non-relativistic Fermi gases with two spin components suffer from a sign problem in the cases of repulsive contact interactions and attractive contact interactions with spin imbalance. We discuss the nature of this sign problem and the applicability of stochastic quantisation with complex Langevin evolution in both cases. For repulsive interactions, we find that the results converge, using adaptive step size scaling and a Gaussian regulator to modify the lattice action. We present results on density profiles and correlations of a harmonically trapped system in one spatial dimension.
Standard lattice formulations of non-relativistic Fermi gases with two spin components suffer from a sign problem in the cases of repulsive contact interactions and attractive contact interactions with spin imbalance. We discuss the nature of this sign problem and the applicability of stochastic quantisation with complex Langevin evolution in both cases. For repulsive interactions, we find that the results converge, using adaptive step size scaling and a Gaussian regulator to modify the lattice action. We present results on density profiles and correlations of a harmonically trapped system in one spatial dimension.
The minus sign problem, as a problem of the non-positive-definite measure of the path integrals, is examined in the Monte Carlo simulation of the Hubbard model. A new correction method in terms of the ratio of two measured quantities is proposed to calculate physical properties. The momentum distribution and the spin correlation as well as the energy in the ground state are tested against the exactly diagonalized results. The results show that this ratio correction method is a promising prescription to reduce the minus sign problem.
We derive a low energy effective model for a two dimensional (2D) system of spinless fermions on a square lattice with repulsive short-range interactions and away from half filling. This model is a natural 2D analogue of the Luttinger model which describes interacting fermions and can be treated exactly by bosonization. It also includes fermion degrees of freedom which cannot be bosonized but, as we argue, can be treated adequately by mean field theory. Our results generalize to 2D a standard approach to 1D lattice fermion systems making them amenable to non-perturbative computation methods by a suitable continuum limit.
The sign problem is a major obstacle in quantum Monte Carlo simulations for many-body fermion systems. We examine this problem with a new perspective based on the Majorana reflection positivity and Majorana Kramers positivity. Two sufficient conditions are proven for the absence of the fermion sign problem. Our proof provides a unified description for all the interacting lattice fermion models previously known to be free of the sign problem based on the auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo method. It also allows us to identify a number of new sign-problem-free interacting fermion models including, but not limited to, lattice fermion models with repulsive interactions but without particle-hole symmetry, and interacting topological insulators with spin-flip terms.
From ultracold atoms to quantum chromodynamics, reliable ab initio studies of strongly interacting fermions require numerical methods, typically in some form of quantum Monte Carlo calculation. Unfortunately, (non)relativistic systems at finite density (spin polarization) generally have a sign problem, such that those ab initio calculations are impractical. It is well-known, however, that in the relativistic case imaginary chemical potentials solve this problem, assuming the data can be analytically continued to the real axis. Is this feasible for nonrelativistic systems? Are the interesting features of the phase diagram accessible in this manner? By introducing complex chemical potentials, for real total particle number and imaginary polarization, the sign problem is avoided in the nonrelativistic case. To give a first answer to the above questions, we perform a mean-field study of the finite-temperature phase diagram of spin-1/2 fermions with imaginary polarization.