Auxiliary-field Monte Carlo methods for interacting fermions : application to the nuclear shell model

Citation

Lang, Gladys Hau-Wan (1993) Auxiliary-field Monte Carlo methods for interacting fermions : application to the nuclear shell model. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/xh84-k642. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:10222009-160215418

Abstract

This thesis presents the path-integral formulation of the nuclear shell model using the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, which linearizes the two-body interaction by auxiliary fields. The path-integral was evaluated via Monte Carlo. The method scales favorably with valence-nucleon number and shell-model basis: full-basis calculations can be done up to the rare-earth region, which cannot be treated by other methods. Observables are calculated for the ground state and in a thermal ensemble. Dynamical correlations are obtained, from which strength functions are extracted through the Maximum Entropy method. Examples in the s-d shell, where exact diagonalization can be carried out, compare well with exact results. The "sign problem", which is generic to fermion Monte Carlo calculations, is proved to be absent in a wide class of interactions including the attractive pairing-plus-multipole interactions. The formulation is general for interacting fermion systems and is well suited for parallel computation. The method has been implemented on the Intel Touchstone Delta System, achieving better than 99% parallelization.

Thesis Files