Phaseless auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo method in the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov manifold

Anouar Benali, Fionn D. Malone, Miguel Morales +3 more

Gayle A. Sugiyama, S. E. Koonin

Zhaozhan Zhang

We formulate and implement the phaseless auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) method in the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) manifold for systems with strong pairing correlations. Our formulation introduces a more flexible representation of HFB walkers with an explicit analytical expression for the normalization factor derived from the representation matrix with respect to the reference vacuum. We also extend our previously developed stochastic gauge formalism from the Slater determinant manifold to the HFB framework, providing additional flexibility for controlling stochastic fluctuations. Benchmark calculations for the Richardson model demonstrate the accuracy and numerical stability of the method.

Don Danilov, Brad Ganoe, Mark Munyi +1 more

Generalized Hartree Fock (GHF) is a long-established electronic structure method that can lower the energy (compared to spin-restricted variants) by breaking physical wavefunction symmetries, namely S^2 and Sz. After an exposition of GHF theory, we assess the use of GHF trial wavefunctions in phaseless auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo (ph-AFQMC-G) calculations of strongly correlated molecular systems including symmetrically stretched hydrogen rings, carbon dioxide, and dioxygen. We find comparable or better accuracy than CCSD(T) with unrestricted HF and GHF references, and consistently smooth dissociation curves -- a remarkable result given the relative scalability of ph-AFQMC-G to larger system sizes. The present exploration of model strongly correlated systems marks a promising starting point for future studies of more chemically-relevant molecules, and demonstrates that ph-AFQMC-G provides a highly accurate (and, in contrast to active-space-based trials, relatively black box and always size-consistent) description of challenging systems exhibiting, e.g., antiferromagnetic coupling and/or geometric spin frustration.

Sandro Sorella

Ettore Vitali, Peter Rosenberg, Shiwei Zhang

We explore the possibility of implementing random walks in the manifold of Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov wave functions. The goal is to extend state-of-the-art quantum Monte Carlo approaches, in particular the constrained-path auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo technique, to systems where finite pairing order parameters or complex pairing mechanisms, e.g., Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov pairing or triplet pairing, may be expected. Leveraging the flexibility to define a vacuum state tailored to the physical problem, we discuss a method to use imaginary-time evolution of Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov states to compute ground state correlations, extending beyond situations spanned by current formalisms. Illustrative examples are provided.