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Piecewise interaction picture density matrix quantum Monte Carlo
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Piecewise interaction picture density matrix quantum Monte Carlo

William Z. Van Benschoten and James J. Shepherd
The Journal of chemical physics, Vol.156(18), 184107
05/14/2022
DOI: 10.1063/5.0094290
url
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0094290View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

The density matrix quantum Monte Carlo (DMQMC) set of methods stochastically samples the exact N-body density matrix for interacting electrons at finite temperature. We introduce a simple modification to the interaction picture DMQMC (IP-DMQMC) method that overcomes the limitation of only sampling one inverse temperature point at a time, instead allowing for the sampling of a temperature range within a single calculation, thereby reducing the computational cost. At the target inverse temperature, instead of ending the simulation, we incorporate a change of picture away from the interaction picture. The resulting equations of motion have piecewise functions and use the interaction picture in the first phase of a simulation, followed by the application of the Bloch equation once the target inverse temperature is reached. We find that the performance of this method is similar to or better than the DMQMC and IP-DMQMC algorithms in a variety of molecular test systems.

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