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To be published in the proceedings of

Initial value problems in quantum field theory and the Feynman path integral representation of Schwinger's closed time path formalism

Fred Cooper

Published Jan 1, 1998• 0 citations
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Direct numerical evaluation of the real-time path integral has a well-known sign problem that makes convergence exponentially slow. One promising remedy is to use Picard-Lefschetz theory to flow the domain of the field variables into the complex plane, where the integral is better behaved. By Cauchy's theorem, the final value of the path integral is unchanged. Previous analyses have considered the case of real scalar fields in thermal equilibrium, employing a closed Schwinger-Keldysh time contour, allowing the evaluation of the full quantum correlation functions. Here we extend the analysis by not requiring a closed time path, instead allowing for an initial density matrix for out-of-equilibrium initial value problems. We are able to explicitly implement Gaussian initial conditions, and by separating the initial time and the later times into a two-step Monte-Carlo sampling, we are able to avoid the phenomenon of multiple thimbles. In fact, there exists one and only one thimble for each sample member of the initial density matrix. We demonstrate the approach through explicitly computing the real-time propagator for an interacting scalar in 0+1 dimensions, and find very good convergence allowing for comparison with perturbation theory and the classical-statistical approximation to real-time dynamics.

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Real-time quantum dynamics, path integrals and the method of thimbles

Zong-Gang Mou, Paul M. Saffin, Anders Tranberg B +1 more

Abstract Direct numerical evaluation of the real-time path integral has a well-known sign problem that makes convergence exponentially slow. One promising remedy is to use Picard-Lefschetz theory to flow the domain of the field variables into the complex plane, where the integral is better behaved. By Cauchy’s theorem, the final value of the path integral is unchanged. Previous analyses have considered the case of real scalar fields in thermal equilibrium, employing a closed Schwinger-Keldysh time contour, allowing the evaluation of the full quantum correlation functions. Here we extend the analysis by not requiring a closed time path, instead allowing for an initial density matrix for out-of-equilibrium initial value problems. We are able to explicitly implement Gaussian initial conditions, and by separating the initial time and the later times into a two-step Monte-Carlo sampling, we are able to avoid the phenomenon of multiple thimbles. In fact, there exists one and only one thimble for each sample member of the initial density matrix. We demonstrate the approach through explicitly computing the real-time propagator for an interacting scalar in 0+1 dimensions, and find very good convergence allowing for comparison with perturbation theory and the classical-statistical approximation to real-time dynamics.

Journal of High Energy Physics•Jun 1, 2019•34 citations
We present a comprehensive review of the most fundamental and practical aspects of thermo-field dynamics (TFD), including some of the most recent developments in the field. To make TFD fully consistent, some suitable changes in the structure of the thermal doublets and the Bogoliubov transformation matrices have been made. A close comparison between TFD and the Schwinger-Keldysh closed time path formalism (SKF) is presented. We find that TFD and SKF are in many ways the same in form; in particular, the two approaches are identical in stationary situations. However, TFD and SKF are quite different in time-dependent nonequilibrium situations. The main source of this difference is that the time evolution of the density matrix itself is ignored in SKF while in TFD it is replaced by a time-dependent Bogoliubov transformation. In this sense TFD is a better candidate for time-dependent quantum field theory. Even in equilibrium situations, TFD has some remarkable advantages over the Matsubara approach and SKF, the most notable being the Feynman diagram recipes, which we will present. We will show that the calculations of two-point functions are simplified, instead of being complicated, by the matrix nature of the formalism. We will present some explicit calculations using TFD, including space-time inhomogeneous situations and the vacuum polarization in equilibrium relativistic QED.
Direct numerical evaluation of the real-time path integral has a well-known sign problem that makes convergence exponentially slow. One promising remedy is to use Picard-Lefschetz theory to flow the domain of the field variables into the complex plane, where the integral is better behaved. By Cauchy's theorem, the final value of the path integral is unchanged. Previous analyses have considered the case of real scalar fields in thermal equilibrium, employing a closed Schwinger-Keldysh time contour, allowing the evaluation of the full quantum correlation functions. Here we extend the analysis by not requiring a closed time path, instead allowing for an initial density matrix for out-of-equilibrium initial value problems. We are able to explicitly implement Gaussian initial conditions, and by separating the initial time and the later times into a two-step Monte-Carlo sampling, we are able to avoid the phenomenon of multiple thimbles. In fact, there exists one and only one thimble for each sample member of the initial density matrix. We demonstrate the approach through explicitly computing the real-time propagator for an interacting scalar in 0+1 dimensions, and find very good convergence allowing for comparison with perturbation theory and the classical-statistical approximation to real-time dynamics.
Abstract Direct numerical evaluation of the real-time path integral has a well-known sign problem that makes convergence exponentially slow. One promising remedy is to use Picard-Lefschetz theory to flow the domain of the field variables into the complex plane, where the integral is better behaved. By Cauchy’s theorem, the final value of the path integral is unchanged. Previous analyses have considered the case of real scalar fields in thermal equilibrium, employing a closed Schwinger-Keldysh time contour, allowing the evaluation of the full quantum correlation functions. Here we extend the analysis by not requiring a closed time path, instead allowing for an initial density matrix for out-of-equilibrium initial value problems. We are able to explicitly implement Gaussian initial conditions, and by separating the initial time and the later times into a two-step Monte-Carlo sampling, we are able to avoid the phenomenon of multiple thimbles. In fact, there exists one and only one thimble for each sample member of the initial density matrix. We demonstrate the approach through explicitly computing the real-time propagator for an interacting scalar in 0+1 dimensions, and find very good convergence allowing for comparison with perturbation theory and the classical-statistical approximation to real-time dynamics.