A benchmark study of the Wigner Monte Carlo method

Abstract

Abstract. The Wigner equation is a promising full quantum model for the simulation of nanodevices. It is also a challenging numerical problem. Two basic Monte Carlo approaches to this model exist exploiting, in the time-dependent case, the so-called particle affinity and, in the stationary case, integer particle signs. In this paper we extend the second approach for time-dependent simulations and present a validation against a well-known benchmark model, the Schrödinger equation. Excellent quantitative agreement is demonstrated by the compared results despite the very different numerical properties of the utilized stochastic and deterministic approaches.