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Physics Letters A

Representation basis in quantum Monte Carlo calculations and the negative-sign problem

Naomichi Hatano, Masuo Suzuki

Published Mar 1, 1992• 29 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1016/0375-9601(92)91006-d

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The negative sign problem in quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations of cluster impurity problems is the major bottleneck in cluster dynamical mean-field calculations. In this paper, we systematically investigate the dependence of the sign problem on the single-particle basis. We explore both the hybridization-expansion and interaction-expansion variants of continuous-time QMC simulations for three-site and four-site impurity models with baths that are diagonal in the orbital degrees of freedom. We find that the sign problem in these models can be substantially reduced by using a nontrivial single-particle basis. Such bases can be generated by diagonalizing a subset of the intracluster hoppings.
Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods for the frustrated quantum spin systems occasionally suffer from the negative sign problem, which makes simulations exponentially harder for larger systems at lower temperatures and severely limits QMC's application across a wide range of spin systems. This problem is known to depend on the choice of representation basis. We propose a systematic approach for mitigating the sign problem independent of the given Hamiltonian or lattice structure. We first introduce the concept of negativity to characterize the severity of the negative sign problem. We then demonstrate the existence of a locally defined quantity, the L1 adaptive loss function, which effectively approximates negativity, especially in frustration-free systems. Using the proposed loss function, we demonstrate that optimizing the representation basis can mitigate the negative sign. This is evidenced by several frustration-free models and other important quantum spin systems. Furthermore, we compare the effectiveness of unitary transformations against the standard orthogonal transformation and reveal that unitary transformations can effectively mitigate the sign problem in certain cases.
The sign problem in full configuration interaction quantum Monte Carlo (FCIQMC) without annihilation can be understood as an instability of the psi-particle population to the ground state of the matrix obtained by making all off-diagonal elements of the Hamiltonian negative. Such a matrix, and hence the sign problem, is basis dependent. In this paper, we discuss the properties of a physically important basis choice: first versus second quantization. For a given choice of single-particle orbitals, we identify the conditions under which the fermion sign problem in the second quantized basis of antisymmetric Slater determinants is identical to the sign problem in the first quantized basis of unsymmetrized Hartree products. We also show that, when the two differ, the fermion sign problem is always less severe in the second quantized basis. This supports the idea that FCIQMC, even in the absence of annihilation, improves the sign problem relative to first quantized methods. Finally, we point out some theoretically interesting classes of Hamiltonians where first and second quantized sign problems differ, and others where they do not.