Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userReal-time quantum dynamics, path integrals and the method of thimbles
97
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic 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 Cauchys 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.
rate research
Read More
We follow up the work, where in light of the Picard-Lefschetz thimble approach, we split up the real-time path integral into two parts: the initial density matrix part which can be represented via an ensemble of initial conditions, and the dynamic part of the path integral which corresponds to the integration over field variables at all later times. This turns the path integral into a two-stage problem where, for each initial condition, there exits one and only one critical point and hence a single thimble in the complex space, whose existence and uniqueness are guaranteed by the characteristics of the initial value problem. In this paper, we test the method for a fully quantum mechanical phenomenon, quantum tunnelling in quantum mechanics. We compare the method to solving the Schrodinger equation numerically, and to the classical-statistical approximation, which emerges naturally in a well-defined limit. We find that the Picard-Lefschetz result matches the expectation from quantum mechanics and that, for this application, the classical-statistical approximation does not.
The Wilson action for Euclidean lattice gauge theory defines a positive-definite transfer matrix that corresponds to a unitary lattice gauge theory time-evolution operator if analytically continued to real time. Hoshina, Fujii, and Kikukawa (HFK) recently pointed out that applying the Wilson action discretization to continuum real-time gauge theory does not lead to this, or any other, unitary theory and proposed an alternate real-time lattice gauge theory action that does result in a unitary real-time transfer matrix. The character expansion defining the HFK action is divergent, and in this work we apply a path integral contour deformation to obtain a convergent representation for U(1) HFK path integrals suitable for numerical Monte Carlo calculations. We also introduce a class of real-time lattice gauge theory actions based on analytic continuation of the Euclidean heat-kernel action. Similar divergent sums are involved in defining these actions, but for one action in this class this divergence takes a particularly simple form, allowing construction of a path integral contour deformation that provides absolutely convergent representations for U(1) and SU(N) real-time lattice gauge theory path integrals. We perform proof-of-principle Monte Carlo calculations of real-time U(1) and SU(3) lattice gauge theory and verify that exact results for unitary time evolution of static quark-antiquark pairs in (1 + 1)D are reproduced.
Real-time evolution of replicas of classical field is proposed as an approximate simulator of real-time quantum field dynamics at finite temperatures. We consider $N$ classical field configurations dubbed as replicas which interact with each other via the $tau$-derivative terms and evolve with the classical equation of motion. The partition function of replicas is found to be proportional to that of quantum field in the imaginary time formalism. As the replica index $tau$ can be regarded as the imaginary time index, the replica evolution is technically the same as the molecular dynamics part of the hybrid Monte-Carlo sampling and the replica configurations should reproduce the correct quantum equilibrium distribution after the long-time evolution. At the same time, evolution of the replica-index average of field variables is described by the classical equation of motion when the fluctuations are small. In order to examine the real-time propagation properties of replicas, we first discuss replica evolution in quantum mechanics. Statistical averages of observables are precisely obtained by the initial condition average of replica evolution, and the time evolution of the unequal-time correlation function, $langle x(t) x(t)rangle$, in a harmonic oscillator is also described well by the replica evolution in the range $T/omega > 0.5$. Next, we examine the statistical and dynamical properties of the $phi^4$ theory in the 4+1 dimensional spacetime, which contains three spatial, one replica index or the imaginary time, and one real-time. We note that the Rayleigh-Jeans divergence can be removed in replica evolution with $N geq 2$ when the mass counterterm is taken into account. We also find that the thermal mass obtained from the unequal-time correlation function at zero momentum grows as a function of the coupling as in the perturbative estimate in the small coupling region.
We present concluding results from our study for zero-temperature phase structure of the massive Thirring model in 1+1 dimensions with staggered regularisation. Employing the method of matrix product states, several quantities, including two types of correlators, are investigated, leading to numerical evidence of a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition. Exploratory results for real-time dynamics pertaining to this transition, obtained using the approaches of variational uniform matrix product state and time-dependent variational principle, are also discussed.
The path optimization method is applied to a QCD effective model with the Polyakov loop and the repulsive vector-type interaction at finite temperature and density to circumvent the model sign problem. We show how the path optimization method can increase the average phase factor and control the model sign problem. This is the first study which correctly treats the repulsive vector-type interaction in the QCD effective model with the Polyakov-loop via the Markov-chain Monte-Carlo approach. It is shown that the complexification of the temporal component of the gluon field and also the vector-type auxiliary field are necessary to evade the model sign problem within the standard path-integral formulation.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
