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Register a new userSystematic study of finite-size effects in quantum Monte Carlo calculations of real metallic systems
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We present a systematic and comprehensive study of finite-size effects in diffusion quantum Monte Carlo calculations of metals. Several previously introduced schemes for correcting finite-size errors are compared for accuracy and efficiency and practical improvements are introduced. In particular, we test a simple but efficient method of finite-size correction based on an accurate combination of twist averaging and density functional theory. Our diffusion quantum Monte Carlo results for lithium and aluminum, as examples of metallic systems, demonstrate excellent agreement between all of the approaches considered.
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We analyze the problem of eliminating finite-size errors from quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) energy data. We demonstrate that both (i) adding a recently proposed [S. Chiesa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 076404 (2006)] finite-size correction to the Ewald energy and (ii) using the model periodic Coulomb (MPC) interaction [L. M. Fraser et al., Phys. Rev. B 53, 1814 (1996); P. R. C. Kent et al., Phys. Rev. B 59, 1917 (1999); A. J. Williamson et al., Phys. Rev. B 55, 4851 (1997)] are good solutions to the problem of removing finite-size effects from the interaction energy in cubic systems, provided the exchange-correlation (XC) hole has converged with respect to system size. However, we find that the MPC interaction distorts the XC hole in finite systems, implying that the Ewald interaction should be used to generate the configuration distribution. The finite-size correction of Chiesa et al. is shown to be incomplete in systems of low symmetry. Beyond-leading-order corrections to the kinetic energy are found to be necessary at intermediate and high densities, and we investigate the effect of adding such corrections to QMC data for the homogeneous electron gas. We analyze finite-size errors in two-dimensional systems and show that the leading-order behavior differs from that which has hitherto been supposed. We compare the efficiency of different twist-averaging methods for reducing single-particle finite-size errors and we examine the performance of various finite-size extrapolation formulas. Finally, we investigate the system-size scaling of biases in diffusion QMC.
Extended solids are frequently simulated as finite systems with periodic boundary conditions, which due to the long-range nature of the Coulomb interaction may lead to slowly decaying finite- size errors. In the case of Quantum-Monte-Carlo simulations, which are based on real space, both real-space and momentum-space solutions to this problem exist. Here, we describe a hybrid method which using real-space data models the spherically averaged structure factor in momentum space. We show that (i) by integration our hybrid method exactly maps onto the real-space model periodic Coulomb-interaction (MPC) method and (ii) therefore our method combines the best of both worlds (real-space and momentum-space). One can use known momentum-resolved behavior to improve convergence where MPC fails (e.g., at surface-like systems). In contrast to pure momentum-space methods, our method only deals with a simple single-valued function and, hence, better lends itself to interpolation with exact small-momentum data as no directional information is needed. By virtue of integration, the resulting finite-size corrections can be written as an addition to MPC.
We have examined the behavior of the compressibility, the dc-conductivity, the single-particle gap, and the Drude weight as probes of the density-driven metal-insulator transition in the Hubbard model on a square lattice. These quantities have been obtained through determinantal quantum Monte Carlo simulations at finite temperatures on lattices up to 16 X 16 sites. While the compressibility, the dc-conductivity, and the gap are known to suffer from `closed-shell effects due to the presence of artificial gaps in the spectrum (caused by the finiteness of the lattices), we have established that the former tracks the average sign of the fermionic determinant (<sign>), and that a shortcut often used to calculate the conductivity may neglect important corrections. Our systematic analyses also show that, by contrast, the Drude weight is not too sensitive to finite-size effects, being much more reliable as a probe to the insulating state. We have also investigated the influence of the discrete imaginary-time interval (Deltatau) on <sign>, on the average density (rho), and on the double occupancy (d): we have found that <sign> and rho are more strongly dependent on Delta tau away from closed-shell configurations, but d follows the Deltatau^2 dependence in both closed- and open-shell cases.
We develop an energy density matrix that parallels the one-body reduced density matrix (1RDM) for many-body quantum systems. Just as the density matrix gives access to the number density and occupation numbers, the energy density matrix yields the energy density and orbital occupation energies. The eigenvectors of the matrix provide a natural orbital partitioning of the energy density while the eigenvalues comprise a single particle energy spectrum obeying a total energy sum rule. For mean-field systems the energy density matrix recovers the exact spectrum. When correlation becomes important, the occupation energies resemble quasiparticle energies in some respects. We explore the occupation energy spectrum for the finite 3D homogeneous electron gas in the metallic regime and an isolated oxygen atom with ground state quantum Monte Carlo techniques implemented in the QMCPACK simulation code. The occupation energy spectrum for the homogeneous electron gas can be described by an effective mass below the Fermi level. Above the Fermi level evanescent behavior in the occupation energies is observed in similar fashion to the occupation numbers of the 1RDM. A direct comparison with total energy differences shows a quantitative connection between the occupation energies and electron addition and removal energies for the electron gas. For the oxygen atom, the association between the ground state occupation energies and particle addition and removal energies becomes only qualitative. The energy density matrix provides a new avenue for describing energetics with quantum Monte Carlo methods which have traditionally been limited to total energies.
Ab initio calculations provide direct access to the properties of pure neutron systems that are challenging to study experimentally. In addition to their importance for fundamental physics, their properties are required as input for effective field theories of the strong interaction. In this work, we perform auxiliary-field diffusion Monte Carlo calculations of the ground and first excited state of two neutrons in a finite box, considering a simple contact potential as well as chiral effective field theory interactions. We compare the results against exact diagonalizations and present a detailed analysis of the finite-volume effects, whose understanding is crucial for determining observables from the calculated energies. Using the Luscher formula, we extract the low-energy S-wave scattering parameters from ground- and excited-state energies for different box sizes.
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