The virial expansion provides a non-perturbative view into the thermodynamics of quantum many-body systems in dilute regimes. While powerful, the expansion is challenging as calculating its coefficients at each order n requires analyzing (if not solving) the quantum n-body problem. In this work, we present a comprehensive review of automated algebra methods, which we developed to calculate high-order virial coefficients. The methods are computational but non-stochastic, thus avoiding statistical effects; they are also for the most part analytic, not numerical, and amenable to massively parallel computer architectures. We show formalism and results for coefficients characterizing the thermodynamics (pressure, density, energy, static susceptibilities) of homogeneous and harmonically trapped systems and explain how to generalize them to other observables such as the momentum distribution, Tan contact, and the structure factor.
The virial expansion provides a non-perturbative view into the thermodynamics of quantum many-body systems in dilute regimes. While powerful, the expansion is challenging as calculating its coefficients at each order n requires analyzing (if not solving) the quantum n-body problem. In this work, we present a comprehensive review of automated algebra methods, which we developed to calculate high-order virial coefficients. The methods are computational but non-stochastic, thus avoiding statistical effects; they are also for the most part analytic, not numerical, and amenable to massively parallel computer architectures. We show formalism and results for coefficients characterizing the thermodynamics (pressure, density, energy, static susceptibilities) of homogeneous and harmonically trapped systems and explain how to generalize them to other observables such as the momentum distribution, Tan contact, and the structure factor.
The virial expansion provides a non-perturbative view into the thermodynamics of quantum many-body systems in dilute regimes. While powerful, the expansion is challenging as calculating its coefficients at each order n requires analyzing (if not solving) the quantum n-body problem. In this work, we present a comprehensive review of automated algebra methods, which we developed to calculate high-order virial coefficients. The methods are computational but non-stochastic, thus avoiding statistical effects; they are also for the most part analytic, not numerical, and amenable to massively parallel computer architectures. We show formalism and results for coefficients characterizing the thermodynamics (pressure, density, energy, static susceptibilities) of homogeneous and harmonically trapped systems and explain how to generalize them to other observables such as the momentum distribution, Tan contact, and the structure factor.
The world around us contains a diverse range of materials whose behavior is determined by the underlying structure at different scales. While the properties of materials we interact with like density, pressure, or temperature are noticeable at a macroscopic scale, the key to understanding where they come from and how they are connected relies on understanding the dynamics of the systems composing them. At the smallest scales, this is a collection of interacting quantum particles. Characterizing these systems is notoriously difficult, especially when the interactions are strong. While a number of methods exist to attack the quantum many-body problem, this dissertation explores application and extensions of methods developed by the Computation Quantum Matter group using automated algebra techniques, a computational hybrid of analytic and numerical approaches. After introducing the main relevant contexts (ultracold atoms and neutron matter) and models (Fermi gasses and the Hubbard model), the bulk of this dissertation details my work on a number of automated algebra projects characterizing quantum matter using the virial expansion, culminating with a virial expansion of the harmonically trapped Hubbard model. My analysis provides a solution to the problem of thermometry in ultracold atoms in optical lattices with arbitrary dimension, N-body interactions, and species related by an SU(N) symmetry.
The virial expansion characterizes the high-temperature approach to the quantum-classical crossover in any quantum many-body system. Here, we calculate the virial coefficients up to the fifth order of Fermi gases in one, two, and three dimensions, with attractive contact interactions, as relevant for a variety of applications in atomic and nuclear physics. To that end, we discretize the imaginary-time direction and calculate the relevant canonical partition functions. In coarse discretizations, we obtain analytic results featuring relationships between the interaction-induced changes $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{3}, \mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{4}$, and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{5}$ as functions of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{2}$, the latter being exactly known in many cases by virtue of the Beth-Uhlenbeck formula. Using automated-algebra methods, we push our calculations to progressively finer discretizations and extrapolate to the continuous-time limit. We find excellent agreement for $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{3}$ with previous calculations in all dimensions and we formulate predictions for $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{4}$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{5}$ in one and two dimensions. We also provide, for a range of couplings, the subspace contributions $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{31}, \mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{22}, \mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{41}$, and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{b}_{32}$, which determine the equation of state and static response of polarized systems at high temperature. As a performance check, we compare the density equation of state and Tan contact with quantum Monte Carlo calculations, diagrammatic approaches, and experimental data where available. Finally, we apply Pad\'e and Pad\'e-Borel resummation methods to extend the usefulness of the virial coefficients to approach and in some cases go beyond the unit-fugacity point.
We characterize the high-temperature thermodynamics of rotating bosons and fermions in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) isotropic harmonic trapping potentials. We begin by calculating analytically the conventional virial coefficients bn for all n in the noninteracting case, as functions of the trapping and rotational frequencies. We also report on the virial coefficients for the angular momentum and associated moment of inertia. Using the bn coefficients, we analyze the deconfined limit (in which the angular frequency matches the trapping frequency) and derive explicitly the limiting form of the partition function, showing from the thermodynamic standpoint how both the 2D and 3D cases become effectively homogeneous 2D systems. To tackle the virial coefficients in the presence of weak interactions, we implement a coarse temporal lattice approximation and obtain virial coefficients up to third order.
By generalizing our automated algebra approach from homogeneous space to harmonically trapped systems, we have calculated the fourth- and fifth-order virial coefficients of universal spin- fermions in the unitary limit, confined in an isotropic harmonic potential. We present results for said coefficients as a function of trapping frequency (or, equivalently, temperature), which compare favorably with previous Monte Carlo calculations (available only at fourth order) as well as with our previous estimates in the untrapped limit (high temperature, low frequency). In addition to the conventional coefficients, we provide estimates for the contributions from subspaces with varying polarization. We use our results for the virial coefficients, together with resummation techniques, to calculate the compressibility and spin susceptibility.
Many-body quantum systems provide an interesting playground for experimentalists and theorists alike. In particular, ultracold atomic gases provide not only a realm of study for which experiments have a high degree of control but also provides theorists with intriguing, yet challenging systems that may be accessed computationally. It is for these reasons that it is here where the majority of our work will focus. We discuss the necessary physics, thermodynamics, and computational methods for carrying out this work, and present several methods for computing coefficients of the quantum virial expansion across dimensions for Fermi gases with zero-range interactions. The techniques discussed are non-perturbative and involve stochastic methods as well as a semi-classical lattice approximation. Through these algorithms, we have computed the interaction dependence (both attractive and repulsive where applicable) of the virial coefficients to a relatively high order as compared to current literature in one, two, and three spatial dimensions. Through one of said methods, we are able to provide a prediction for the radius of convergence of the virial expansion in one spatial dimension.