New Quantum Monte Carlo Algorithms to Efficiently Utilize Massively Parallel Computers

Citation

Kent, David Randall, IV (2003) New Quantum Monte Carlo Algorithms to Efficiently Utilize Massively Parallel Computers. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/V64A-V618. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-02252003-134943

Abstract

The exponential growth in computer power over the past few decades has been a huge boon to computational chemistry, physics, biology, and materials science. Now, a standard workstation or Linux cluster can calculate semi-quantitative properties of moderately sized systems. The next step in computational science is developing better algorithms which allow quantitative calculations of a system's properties.

A relatively new class of algorithms, known collectively as Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC), has the potential to quantitatively calculate the properties of molecular systems. Furthermore, QMC scales as O(N³) or better. This makes possible very high-level calculations on systems that are too large to be examined using standard high-level methods.

This thesis develops (1) an efficient algorithm for determining "on-the-fly" the statistical error in serially correlated data, (2) a manager-worker parallelization algorithm for QMC that allows calculations to run on heterogeneous parallel computers and computational grids, (3) a robust algorithm for optimizing Jastrow functions which have singularities for some parameter values, and (4) a proof-of-concept demonstrating that it is possible to find transferable parameter sets for large classes of compounds.

Thesis Files