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The Journal of Chemical Physics

Green’s function Monte Carlo for few fermion problems

David M. Arnow, Malvin H. Kalos, Michael A. Lee, Kevin E. Schmidt

Published Dec 1, 1982• 99 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The Green’s function Monte Carlo method used for obtaining exact solutions to the Schrödinger equation of boson systems is generalized to treat systems of several fermions. We show that when it is possible to select eigenfunctions of the Hamiltonian based on physical symmetries, the GFMC method can be used to yield the lowest energy state of that symmetry. In particular, the lowest totally antisymmetric eigenfunction, the fermion ground state, can be obtained. Calculations on several two- and three-body model problems show the method to be computationally feasible for few-body systems.

DOI
10.1063/1.443762

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Variational Monte Carlo and several many-fermion Green's-function Monte Carlo (GFMC) algorithms are used to study the ground state of liquid 3He^{3}\mathrm{He}3He. We report the first mirror potential GFMC calculations in a many-fermion problem, comparing them with transient estimation and fixed-node studies to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of each. GFMC results with the Aziz HFDHE2 interaction are in good agreement with experiment, yielding energies within approximately 0.1 K per particle. In addition, each of these calculations predict a kinetic energy per particle of between 12 and 12.5 K.
A novel scheme to solve the quantum eigenvalue problem through the imaginary-time Green function Monte Carlo method is presented. This method is applicable not only to the ground states, but also to the excited states of generic system. We demonstrate the actual utility of the method with the numerical examples on three simple systems. Typeset using REVTEX 1 The stochastic quantization has been successfully applied in recent years to the various problems of physics ranging from quantum chromo dynamics to the plasmon oscillation [1-3]. While it can handle very complex systems which is usually beyond the approach either by the direct diagonalization or by the perturbation, it has been only applicable to the calculation of the ground state properties of the system. In this paper, we propose a new method based on the imaginary-time Green function Monte Carlo approach, which is extendable to the excited states of Hamiltonian system. We have primarily in mind the non-relativistic quantum few body problem such as encountered in nuclear physics [4-6].