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arXiv:nucl-th/0302041 · Physical Review C

Quantum Monte Carlo calculations of neutron matter

Joseph Carlson, J. Morales, Vijay R. Pandharipande, D. G. Ravenhall

Published Aug 15, 2003• 176 citations
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Abstract

Uniform neutron matter is approximated by a cubical box containing a finite number of neutrons, with periodic boundary conditions. We report variational and Green's function Monte Carlo calculations of the ground state of fourteen neutrons in a periodic box using the Argonne ${v8}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ two-nucleon interaction at densities up to one and half times the nuclear matter density. The effects of the finite box size are estimated using variational wave functions together with cluster expansion and chain summation techniques. They are small at subnuclear densities. We discuss the expansion of the energy of low-density neutron gas in powers of its Fermi momentum. This expansion is strongly modified by the large $\mathrm{nn}$ scattering length, and does not begin with the Fermi-gas kinetic energy, as assumed in both Skyrme and relativistic mean field theories. The leading term of neutron gas energy is approximately half the Fermi-gas kinetic energy. The quantum Monte Carlo results are also used to calibrate the accuracy of variational calculations employing Fermi hypernetted and single operator chain summation methods to study nucleon matter over a larger density range, with more realistic Hamiltonians including three-nucleon interactions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevc.68.025802

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Uniform neutron matter is approximated by a cubical box containing a finite number of neutrons, with periodic boundary conditions. We report variational and Green's function Monte Carlo calculations of the ground state of fourteen neutrons in a periodic box using the Argonne v8\ensuremath′{v8}^{\ensuremath{'}}v8\ensuremath′ two-nucleon interaction at densities up to one and half times the nuclear matter density. The effects of the finite box size are estimated using variational wave functions together with cluster expansion and chain summation techniques. They are small at subnuclear densities. We discuss the expansion of the energy of low-density neutron gas in powers of its Fermi momentum. This expansion is strongly modified by the large nn\mathrm{nn}nn scattering length, and does not begin with the Fermi-gas kinetic energy, as assumed in both Skyrme and relativistic mean field theories. The leading term of neutron gas energy is approximately half the Fermi-gas kinetic energy. The quantum Monte Carlo results are also used to calibrate the accuracy of variational calculations employing Fermi hypernetted and single operator chain summation methods to study nucleon matter over a larger density range, with more realistic Hamiltonians including three-nucleon interactions.
Abstract Pure neutron matter is not likely to be found in any of the Earth’s laboratories, but it has been found to exist as the material of neutron stars. It presents an interesting and difficult manybody problem which may be attacked by QMC methods. In this paper the authors report variational, approximate fixed-node, and released-node QMC calculations for uniform neutron matter in a three-dimensional box with periodic boundary conditions. These allow the determination of the energy E(p) as a function of the neutron density p for a realistic two-neutron interaction expression. The results are used to assess the accuracy of earlier variational approaches. The system treated was that of 14 neutrons in a cube at densities in the range of 1 / 4 to 3/2 the density p0 typical for nuclear matter. Most of the calculations were done for the Argonne v8’ two-body interaction potential. The trial wavefunction was a correlated Slater function, identical for the variational and diffusion calculations, specifying the nodes and used in importance sampling. Corrections were made for the effects of finite box dimensions. The released-node calculations were limited to very short time intervals especially for the higher densities. The energies E(p) found in the diffusion QMC calculations were 5 to 10% lower than those of the variational QMC. The releasednode results, with relatively large statistical errors, were not significantly different from the fixed-node results. The energies determined for the lower densities were estimated to be accurate within 2% and those for the higher densities somewhat less accurate. The results showed earlier predictions to be generally correct. Comparisons of results from variational chain summations (VCS) indicated an overall accuracy of about 10% for that method.
We present calculations of the energy per particle of pure neutron and symmetric nuclear matter with simplified Argonne nucleon-nucleon potentials for different many-body theories. We compare critically the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock results to other formalisms, such as the Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone expansion up to third order, self-consistent Green's functions, auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo, and Fermi hypernetted chain. We evaluate the importance of spin-orbit and tensor correlations in the equation of state and find these to be important in a wide range of densities.
We review the properties of neutron matter in the low-density regime. In particular, we revise its ground state energy and the superfluid neutron pairing gap and analyze their evolution from the weak to the strong coupling regime. The calculations of the energy and the pairing gap are performed, respectively, within the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (BHF) approach of nuclear matter and the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory using the chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction of Entem and Machleidt at N3LO and the Argonne V18 phenomenological potential. Results for the energy are also shown for a simple Gaussian potential with a strength and range adjusted to reproduce the1S0neutron-neutron scattering length and effective range. Our results are compared with those of quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations for neutron matter and cold atoms. The Tan contact parameter in neutron matter is also calculated, finding a reasonable agreement with experimental data from ultra-cold atoms only at very low densities. We find that low-density neutron matter exhibits a behavior close to that of a Fermi gas at the unitary limit, although, this limit is actually never reached. We also review the properties (energy, effective mass, and quasiparticle residue) of a spin-down neutron impurity immersed in a low-density free Fermi gas of spin-up neutrons already studied by the author in a recent work where it was shown that these properties are very close to those of an attractive Fermi polaron in the unitary limit.
We report results of fully nonperturbative, path integral Monte Carlo calculations for dilute neutron matter. The neutron-neutron interaction in the sss channel is parameterized by the scattering length and the effective range. We calculate the energy and the chemical potential as a function of temperature at density $\ensuremath{\rho}=0.003 {\text{fm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$. The critical temperature Tc{T}_{c}Tc​ for the superfluid-normal phase transition is estimated from the finite size scaling of the condensate fraction. At low temperatures we extract the spectral weight function $A(\mathbf{p},\ensuremath{\omega})$ from the imaginary time propagator using the methods of maximum entropy and singular value decomposition. We determine the quasiparticle spectrum, which can be accurately parameterized by three parameters: an effective mass m∗{m}^{*}m∗, a mean-field potential UUU, and a gap $\ensuremath{\Delta}$. Large values of $\ensuremath{\Delta}/{T}_{c}$ indicate that the system is not a BCS-type superfluid at low temperatures.
Neutron matter, through its connection to neutron stars as well as systems such as cold atom gases, is one of the most interesting yet computationally accessible systems in nuclear physics. The configuration-interaction Monte Carlo (CIMC) method is a stochastic many-body technique allowing us to tackle strongly coupled systems. In contrast to other quantum Monte Carlo methods employed in nuclear physics, the CIMC method can be formulated directly in momentum space allowing for an efficient use of nonlocal interactions. In this work we extend CIMC method to include three-nucleon interactions through the normal-ordered two-body approximation. We present results for the equation of state of neutron matter in line with other many-body calculations that employ low-resolution chiral interactions, and provide predictions for the momentum distribution and the static structure factor.
Thermal properties of low-density neutron matter are investigated by determinantal quantum Monte Carlo lattice calculations on 3+1 dimensional cubic lattices. Nuclear effective field theory (EFT) is applied using the pionless single- and two-parameter neutron-neutron interactions, determined from the 1S0{}^{1}{S}_{0}1S0​ scattering length and effective range. The determination of the interactions and the calculations of neutron matter are carried out consistently by applying EFT power counting rules. The thermodynamic limit is taken by the method of finite-size scaling, and the continuum limit is examined in the vanishing lattice filling limit. The 1S0{}^{1}{S}_{0}1S0​ pairing gap at $T\ensuremath{\approx}0$ is computed directly from the off-diagonal long-range order of the spin pair-pair correlation function and is found to be approximately 30% smaller than BCS calculations with the conventional nucleon-nucleon potentials. The critical temperature Tc{T}_{c}Tc​ of the normal-to-superfluid phase transition and the pairing temperature scale T∗{T}^{*}T∗ are determined, and the temperature-density phase diagram is constructed. The physics of low-density neutron matter is clearly identified as being a BCS-Bose-Einstein condensation crossover.