Confidence and efficiency scaling in variational quantum Monte Carlo calculations.

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Based on the central limit theorem, we discuss the problem of evaluation of the statistical error of Monte Carlo calculations using a time-discretized diffusion process. We present a robust and practical method to determine the effective variance of general observables and show how to verify the equilibrium hypothesis by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. We then derive scaling laws of the efficiency illustrated by variational Monte Carlo calculations on the two-dimensional electron gas.