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arXiv:1905.02782

Ab Initio Simulations of Light Nuclear Systems Using Eigenvector Continuation and Auxiliary Field Monte Carlo

Dillon Frame

Published May 7, 2019• 10 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this work, we discuss a new method for calculation of extremal eigenvectors and eigenvalues in systems or regions of parameter space where direct calculation is problematic. This technique relies on the analytic continuation of the power series expansion for the eigenvector around a point in the complex plane. We start this document by introducing the background material relevant to understand the basics of quantum mechanics and quantum field theories on the lattice, how we perform our numerical simulations, and how this relates to the nuclear physics we probe. We then move to the mathematical formalism of the eigenvector continuation, which is rooted in analytic function theory and linear algebra. We then discuss how these techniques are implemented numerically, with a discussion about the computational costs. Finally, we discuss applications of this method to full, quantum many-body systems. These include neutron matter, the Bose-Hubbard model, the Lipkin model, and the Coulomb interaction in light nuclei with LO chiral forces. These systems cover two categories of interest to the field: systems with a substantial sign problem, or systems that exhibit quantum phase transitions.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1905.02782

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•Jan 1, 2012•0 citations
In this work, we discuss a new method for calculation of extremal eigenvectors and eigenvalues in systems or regions of parameter space where direct calculation is problematic. This technique relies on the analytic continuation of the power series expansion for the eigenvector around a point in the complex plane. We start this document by introducing the background material relevant to understand the basics of quantum mechanics and quantum field theories on the lattice, how we perform our numerical simulations, and how this relates to the nuclear physics we probe. We then move to the mathematical formalism of the eigenvector continuation, which is rooted in analytic function theory and linear algebra. We then discuss how these techniques are implemented numerically, with a discussion about the computational costs. Finally, we discuss applications of this method to full, quantum many-body systems. These include neutron matter, the Bose-Hubbard model, the Lipkin model, and the Coulomb interaction in light nuclei with LO chiral forces. These systems cover two categories of interest to the field: systems with a substantial sign problem, or systems that exhibit quantum phase transitions.
Abstract Simulating quantum systems in a finite volume is a powerful theoretical tool to extract information about them. Real-world properties of the system are encoded in how its discrete energy levels change with the size of the volume. This approach is relevant not only for nuclear physics, where lattice methods for few- and many-nucleon states complement phenomenological shell-model descriptions and ab initio calculations of atomic nuclei based on harmonic oscillator expansions, but also for other fields such as simulations of cold atomic systems. This contribution presents recent progress concerning finite-volume simulations of few-body systems. In particular, it discusses details regarding the efficient numerical implementation of separable interactions and it presents eigenvector continuation as a method for performing robust and efficient volume extrapolations.
First principles calculations of atomic nuclei based on microscopic nuclear forces derived from chiral effective field theory (EFT) have blossomed in the past years. A key element of such ab initio studies is the understanding and quantification of systematic and statistical errors arising from the omission of higher-order terms in the chiral expansion as well as the model calibration. While there has been significant progress in analyzing theoretical uncertainties for nucleon-nucleon scattering observables, the generalization to multi-nucleon systems has not been feasible yet due to the high computational cost of evaluating observables for a large set of low-energy couplings. In this Letter we show that a new method called eigenvector continuation (EC) can be used for constructing an efficient and accurate emulator for nuclear many-body observables, thereby enabling uncertainty quantification in multi-nucleon systems. We demonstrate the power of EC emulation with a proof-of-principle calculation that lays out all correlations between bulk ground-state observables in the few-nucleon sector. On the basis of ab initio calculations for the ground-state energy and radius in 4He, we demonstrate that EC is more accurate and efficient compared to established methods like Gaussian processes.
Quantum Monte Carlo simulations are powerful and versatile tools for the quantum many-body problem. In addition to the usual calculations of energies and eigenstate observables, quantum Monte Carlo simulations can in principle be used to build fast and accurate many-body emulators using eigenvector continuation or design time-dependent Hamiltonians for adiabatic quantum computing. These new applications require something that is missing from the published literature, an efficient quantum Monte Carlo scheme for computing the inner product of ground state eigenvectors corresponding to different Hamiltonians. In this work, we introduce an algorithm called the floating block method, which solves the problem by performing Euclidean time evolution with two different Hamiltonians and interleaving the corresponding time blocks. We use the floating block method and nuclear lattice simulations to build eigenvector continuation emulators for energies of ^{4}He, ^{8}Be, ^{12}C, and ^{16}O nuclei over a range of local and nonlocal interaction couplings. From the emulator data, we identify the quantum phase transition line from a Bose gas of alpha particles to a nuclear liquid.
In this thesis, I discuss the use of the Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte Carlo method to compute the ground state of nuclear Hamiltonians, and I show several applications to interesting problems both in nuclear physics and in nuclear astrophysics. In particular, the AFDMC algorithm is applied to the study of several nuclear systems, finite, and infinite matter. Results about the ground state of nuclei (4^44He, 8^88He, 16^{16}16O and 40^{40}40Ca), neutron drops (with 8 and 20 neutrons) and neutron rich-nuclei (isotopes of oxygen and calcium) are discussed, and the equation of state of nuclear and neutron matter are calculated and compared with other many-body calculations. The 1S0^1S_01S0​ superfluid phase of neutron matter in the low-density regime was also studied.
Abstract Ab initio calculations have an essential role in our fundamental understanding of quantum many-body systems across many subfields, from strongly correlated fermions 1–3 to quantum chemistry 4–6 and from atomic and molecular systems 7–9 to nuclear physics 10–14 . One of the primary challenges is to perform accurate calculations for systems where the interactions may be complicated and difficult for the chosen computational method to handle. Here we address the problem by introducing an approach called wavefunction matching. Wavefunction matching transforms the interaction between particles so that the wavefunctions up to some finite range match that of an easily computable interaction. This allows for calculations of systems that would otherwise be impossible owing to problems such as Monte Carlo sign cancellations. We apply the method to lattice Monte Carlo simulations 15,16 of light nuclei, medium-mass nuclei, neutron matter and nuclear matter. We use high-fidelity chiral effective field theory interactions 17,18 and find good agreement with empirical data. These results are accompanied by insights on the nuclear interactions that may help to resolve long-standing challenges in accurately reproducing nuclear binding energies, charge radii and nuclear-matter saturation in ab initio calculations 19,20 .
The shell model provides a powerful framework for nuclear structure calculations. The nucleons beyond an inert magic core are confined in a valence shell and interact through an effective two-body potential generally determined from the G-matrix method. However, the applicability of the shell model remains limited by the exponential growth of the many-body space with the number of valence nucleons and with the size of the one-body space. The quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods may thus be considered as a potentially attractive alternative to the direct diagonalization of the Hamiltonian matrix. The many-body problem is indeed reduced to a set of stochastic one-body problems describing independent particles in a fluctuating external field. Up to date, the QMC approaches of the shell model lead to the ground-state and the thermodynamic properties, but a detailed spectroscopy of nuclei is not reachable. Furthermore, they suffer from a common pathology of fermionic QMC methods, namely the sign/phase problem, which strongly contaminates the convergence of the calculation. In this context, we will present a new QMC method, providing the "yrast spectroscopy" of nuclei, and in which the sign/phase problem is managed through the constrained path approximation that is widely used in the ab initio nuclear calculations and in condensed matter physics.