Split Orthogonal Group: A Guiding Principle for Sign-Problem-Free Fermionic Simulations

Abstract

We present a guiding principle for designing fermionic Hamiltonians and quantum MonteCarlo (QMC) methods that are free from the infamous sign problem by exploiting the Lie groups and Lie algebras that appear naturally in the MonteCarlo weight of fermionic QMC simulations. Specifically, rigorous mathematical constraints on the determinants involving matrices that lie in the split orthogonal group provide a guideline for sign-free simulations of fermionic models on bipartite lattices. This guiding principle not only unifies the recent solutions of the sign problem based on the continuous-time quantum MonteCarlo methods and the Majorana representation, but also suggests new efficient algorithms to simulate physical systems that were previously prohibitive because of the sign problem.