Diagrammatic Monte Carlo Method Research Articles

Global sampling of Feynman's diagrams through normalizing flow

Normalizing flows (NF) are powerful generative models with increasing applications in augmenting Monte Carlo algorithms due to their high flexibility and expressiveness. In this work we explore the integration of NF in the diagrammatic Monte Carlo (DMC) method, presenting an architecture designed to sample the intricate multidimensional space of Feynman's diagrams through dimensionality reduction. By decoupling the sampling of diagram order and interaction times, the flow focuses on one interaction at a time. This enables one to construct a general diagram by employing the same unsupervised model iteratively, dressing a zero-order diagram with interactions determined by the previously sampled order. The resulting NF-augmented DMC method is tested on the widely used single-site Holstein polaron model in the entire electron-phonon coupling regime. The obtained data show that the model accurately reproduces the diagram distribution by reducing sample correlation and observables' statistical error, constituting the first example of global sampling strategy for connected Feynman's diagrams in the DMC method. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Global sampling of Feynman's diagrams through normalizing flow

Normalizing flows (NF) are powerful generative models with increasing applications in augmenting Monte Carlo algorithms due to their high flexibility and expressiveness. In this work we explore the integration of NF in the diagrammatic Monte Carlo (DMC) method, presenting an architecture designed to sample the intricate multidimensional space of Feynman's diagrams through dimensionality reduction. By decoupling the sampling of diagram order and interaction times, the flow focuses on one interaction at a time. This enables one to construct a general diagram by employing the same unsupervised model iteratively, dressing a zero-order diagram with interactions determined by the previously sampled order. The resulting NF-augmented DMC method is tested on the widely used single-site Holstein polaron model in the entire electron-phonon coupling regime. The obtained data show that the model accurately reproduces the diagram distribution by reducing sample correlation and observables' statistical error, constituting the first example of global sampling strategy for connected Feynman's diagrams in the DMC method. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

All electron GW with linearized augmented plane waves for metals and semiconductors

GW approximation is one of the most popular parameter-free many-body methods that go beyond the limitations of the standard density functional theory (DFT) to determine the excitation spectra for moderately correlated materials and in particular the semiconductors. It is also the first step in developing the diagrammatic Monte Carlo method into an electronic structure tool, which would offer a numerically exact solution to the solid-state problem. While most electronic structure packages offer support for GW calculations for band-insulating materials, the level of support for metallic systems is somewhat limited. This limitation can be partly attributed to the relatively minor differences often observed between GW and DFT results in treating metallic systems, which is not expected to persist to higher orders in perturbation theory. Describing metals within the GW framework presents a challenge, as it requires accurate resolution of Fermi surface singularities, which, in turn, calls for a dense momentum mesh. Here we implement the GW algorithm within the all-electron Linear Augmented Plane Wave framework, where we pay special attention to the metallic systems, the convergence with respect to momentum mesh, and proper treatment of the deep laying core states, as needed for the future variational diagrammatic Monte Carlo implementation. Our improved algorithm for resolving Fermi surface singularities allows us a stable and accurate analytic continuation of imaginary axis data, which is carried out for GW excitation spectra throughout the Brillouin zone in both the metallic and insulating materials and is compared to numerically more stable contour deformation integration technique. We compute band structures for elemental metallic systems Li, Na, and Mg as well as for various narrow and wide bandgap insulators such as Si, BN, SiC, MgO, LiF, ZnS, and CdS and compare our results with previous GW calculations and available experiments data. Our results are in good agreement with the available literature. Thus our software allows users to compute full bandstructures for metals and insulators using all-electron potential without downfolding to Wannier orbital basis.

Exchange-correlation effect in the charge response of a warm dense electron gas

The study of warm dense matter, widely existing in nature and laboratories, is challenging due to the interplay of quantum and classical fluctuations. We develop a variational diagrammatic Monte Carlo method and determine the exchange-correlation kernel ${K}_{\mathrm{XC}}(q;T)$ of a warm dense electron gas for a broad range of temperature $T$ and momentum $q$. We observe several interesting physics, including the $T$-dependent evolution of the hump structure and the large-$q$ tail and the emergence of a scaling relation. Particularly, by deriving an analytical form for $q\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$, we obtain large-$q$ tails of ${K}_{\mathrm{XC}}$ with high precision. It is shown that the ${K}_{\mathrm{XC}}$ data can be reliably transformed into real space, which can be directly used in density-functional-theory calculations of real warm dense matter.

Single-particle excitations in the uniform electron gas by diagrammatic Monte Carlo

We calculate the single-particle excitation spectrum and the Landau liquid parameters for the archetypal model of solids, the three-dimensional uniform electron gas, with the variational diagrammatic Monte Carlo method, which gives numerically controlled results without systematic error. In the metallic range of density, we establish benchmark values for the wave-function renormalization factor Z, the effective mass m^*/m, and the Landau parameters F_0^s and F_0^a with unprecedented accuracy, and we resolve the long-standing puzzle of non-monotonic dependence of mass on density. We also exclude the possibility that experimentally measured large reduction of bandwidth in Na metal can originate from the charge and spin fluctuations contained in the model of the uniform electron gas.

Dynamics of string-like states of a hole in a quantum antiferromagnet: a diagrammatic Monte Carlo simulation

The dynamics of a hole motion in a quantum antiferromagnet has been studied in the past three decades because of its relationship to models related to superconductivity in cuprates. The same problem has received significant attention because of its connection to very recent experiments of the dynamics of ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices where models of strongly correlated electrons can be simulated. In this paper we apply the diagrammatic Monte Carlo method to calculate the single-hole Green’s function in the t–J model, where the J term is linearized, in a wide range of imaginary-time with the aim to examine the polaron formation and in particular the details of the contribution of the so-called string excitations found in such recent experiments. We calculate the single-hole spectral function by analytic continuation from imaginary to real time and study the various aspects that constitute the string picture, such as, the energy–momentum dependence of the main quasiparticle peak and its residue, the internal excitations of the string which appear as multiple peaks in the spectral function as well as their momentum dependence. We find that the earlier analysis of the spectral function based on a mobile-hole connected with a string of overturn spins and the contribution of the internal string excitations as obtained from the non-crossing approximation is accurate.

Peierls/Su-Schrieffer-Heeger polarons in two dimensions

Polarons with different types of electron-phonon coupling have fundamentally different properties. When the dominant interaction is between the electron density and lattice displacement, the momentum of the ground state does not change and the polaron gets exponentially heavy at strong coupling. In contrast, one-dimensional Peierls/Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (PSSH) polarons with interaction originating from displacement-modulated hopping feature a shift of the ground-state momentum to finite values and moderate values of effective mass as coupling is increased REF[Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 266605 (2010)]. Based on Diagrammatic Monte Carlo method, we investigate whether unusual properties of PSSH polarons depend on the type of the displacement-modulated hopping and to what degree they survive in higher dimension. We study two different PSSH models: with bosonic degrees of freedom residing on sites (model A) and bonds (model B) of the two-dimensional square lattice. For model A, we find that in both adiabatic and intermediate regimes, the momentum of the ground state experiences a continuous transition from zero to a finite value as a function of coupling strength. The transition is driven by quadratic instability of the dispersion function, implying that effective mass diverges at the critical point, and then decreases in an anisotropic fashion with increasing coupling. Unexpectedly, for model B, the momentum of the ground state always stays at zero and the effective mass increases monotonously with coupling. The increase is far from exponential and tends to level-off at strong interaction, resulting in relatively light polarons. Having light polarons in the strong coupling regime is crucial for the bi-polaron mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity REF[Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 247001 (2018)].

Homotopic Action: A Pathway to Convergent Diagrammatic Theories.

The major obstacle preventing Feynman diagrammatic expansions from accurately solving many-fermion systems in strongly correlated regimes is the series slow convergence or divergence problem. Several techniques have been proposed to address this issue: series resummation by conformal mapping, changing the nature of the starting point of the expansion by shifted action tools, and applying the homotopy analysis method to the Dyson-Schwinger equation. They emerge as dissimilar mathematical procedures aimed at different aspects of the problem. The proposed homotopic action offers a universal and systematic framework for unifying the existing-and generating new-methods and ideas to formulate a physical system in terms of a convergent diagrammatic series. It eliminates the need for resummation, allows one to introduce effective interactions, enables a controlled ultraviolet regularization of continuous-space theories, and reduces the intrinsic polynomial complexity of the diagrammatic MonteCarlo method. We illustrate this approach by an application to the Hubbard model.

Fermi blockade of the strong electron\u2013phonon interaction in modelled optimally doped high temperature superconductors

We study how manifestations of strong electron–phonon interaction depend on the carrier concentration by solving the two-dimensional Holstein model for the spin-polarized fermions using an approximation free bold-line diagrammatic Monte Carlo method. We show that the strong electron–phonon interaction, obviously present at very small Fermion concentration, is masked by the Fermi blockade effects and Migdal’s theorem to the extent that it manifests itself as moderate one at large carriers densities. Suppression of strong electron–phonon interaction fingerprints is in agreement with experimental observations in doped high temperature superconductors.

Analytical solution for time integrals in diagrammatic expansions: Application to real-frequency diagrammatic Monte Carlo

The past years have seen a revived interest in the diagrammatic Monte Carlo (DiagMC) methods for interacting fermions on a lattice. A promising recent development allows one to now circumvent the analytical continuation of dynamic observables in DiagMC calculations within the Matsubara formalism. This is made possible by symbolic algebra algorithms, which can be used to analytically solve the internal Matsubara frequency summations of Feynman diagrams. In this paper, we take a different approach and show that it yields improved results. We present a closed-form analytical solution of imaginary-time integrals that appear in the time-domain formulation of Feynman diagrams. We implement and test a DiagMC algorithm based on this analytical solution and show that it has numerous significant advantages. Most importantly, the algorithm is general enough for any kind of single-time correlation function series, involving any single-particle vertex insertions. Therefore, it readily allows for the use of action-shifted schemes, aimed at improving the convergence properties of the series. By performing a frequency-resolved action-shift tuning, we are able to further improve the method and converge the self-energy in a non-trivial regime, with only 3-4 perturbation orders. Finally, we identify time integrals of the same general form in many commonly used Monte Carlo algorithms and therefore expect a broader usage of our analytical solution.

Diagrammatic Monte Carlo method for impurity models with general interactions and hybridizations

We present a diagrammatic Monte Carlo method for quantum impurity problems with general interactions and general hybridization functions. Our method uses a recursive determinant scheme to sample diagrams for the scattering amplitude. Unlike in other methods for general impurity problems, an approximation of the continuous hybridization function by a finite number of bath states is not needed, and accessing low temperature does not incur an exponential cost. We test the method for the example of molecular systems, where we systematically vary temperature, interatomic distance, and basis set size. We further apply the method to an impurity problem generated by a self-energy embedding calculation of correlated antiferromagnetic NiO. We find that the method is ideal for quantum impurity problems with a large number of orbitals but only moderate correlations.

Inchworm Monte Carlo Method for Open Quantum Systems

AbstractWe investigate in this work a recently proposed diagrammatic quantum Monte Carlo method—the inchworm Monte Carlo method—for open quantum systems. We establish its validity rigorously based on resummation of Dyson series. Moreover, we introduce an integro‐differential equation formulation for open quantum systems, which illuminates the mathematical structure of the inchworm algorithm. This new formulation leads to an improvement of the inchworm algorithm by introducing classical deterministic time‐integration schemes. The numerical method is validated by applications to the spin‐boson model. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Quantum-to-classical correspondence in two-dimensional Heisenberg models

The quantum-to-classical correspondence (QCC) in spin models is a puzzling phenomenon where the static susceptibility of a quantum system agrees with its classical-system counterpart, at a different corresponding temperature, within the systematic error at a sub-percent level. We employ the bold diagrammatic Monte Carlo method to explore the universality of QCC by considering three different two-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg models. In particular, we reveal the existence of QCC in two-parametric models.

Extended Crossover from a Fermi Liquid to a Quasiantiferromagnet in the Half-Filled 2D Hubbard Model.

The ground state of the Hubbard model with nearest-neighbor hopping on the square lattice at half filling is known to be that of an antiferromagnetic (AFM) band insulator for any on-site repulsion. At finite temperature, the absence of long-range order makes the question of how the interaction-driven insulator is realized nontrivial. We address this problem with controlled accuracy in the thermodynamic limit using self-energy diagrammatic determinant MonteCarlo and dynamical cluster approximation methods and show that development of long-range AFM correlations drives an extended crossover from Fermi liquid to insulating behavior in the parameter regime that precludes a metal-to-insulator transition. The intermediate crossover state is best described as a non-Fermi liquid with a partially gapped Fermi surface.

A combined variational and diagrammatic quantum Monte Carlo approach to the many-electron problem

Two of the most influential ideas developed by Richard Feynman are the Feynman diagram technique and his variational approach. Here we show that combining both, and introducing a diagrammatic quantum Monte Carlo method, results in a powerful and accurate solver to the generic solid state problem, in which a macroscopic number of electrons interact by the long range Coulomb repulsion. We apply it to the quintessential problem of solid state, the uniform electron gas, which is at the heart of the density functional theory success in describing real materials, yet it has not been adequately solved for over 90 years. Our method allows us to calculate numerically exact momentum and frequency resolved spin and charge response functions. This method can be applied to a number of moderately interacting electron systems, including models of realistic metallic and semiconducting solids.

Polaron Mobility in the "Beyond Quasiparticles" Regime.

In a number of physical situations, from polarons to Dirac liquids and to non-Fermi liquids, one encounters the "beyond quasiparticles" regime, in which the inelastic scattering rate exceeds the thermal energy of quasiparticles. Transport in this regime cannot be described by the kinetic equation. We employ the diagrammatic MonteCarlo method to study the mobility of a Fröhlich polaron in this regime and discover a number of nonperturbative effects: a strong violation of the Mott-Ioffe-Regel criterion at intermediate and strong couplings, a mobility minimum at T∼Ω in the strong-coupling limit (Ω is the optical mode frequency), a substantial delay in the onset of an exponential dependence of the mobility for T<Ω at intermediate coupling, and complete smearing of the Drude peak at strong coupling. These effects should be taken into account when interpreting mobility data in materials with strong electron-phonon coupling.

Bold diagrammatic Monte Carlo in the lens of stochastic iterative methods

Abstract This work aims at understanding of bold diagrammatic Monte Carlo (BDMC) methods for stochastic summation of Feynman diagrams from the angle of stochastic iterative methods. The convergence enhancement trick of the BDMC is investigated from the analysis of condition number and convergence of the stochastic iterative methods. Numerical experiments are carried out for model systems to compare the BDMC with related stochastic iterative approaches.

Lecture notes on Diagrammatic Monte Carlo for the Fröhlich polaron

These notes are intended as a detailed discussion on how to implement the diagrammatic Monte Carlo method for a physical system which is technically simple and where it works extremely well, namely the Fröhlich polaron problem. Sampling schemes for the Green function as well as the self-energy in the bare and skeleton (bold) expansion are disclosed in full detail. We discuss the Monte Carlo updates, possible implementations in terms of common data structures, as well as techniques on how to perform the Fourier transforms for functions with discontinuities. Control over the variety of parameters, especially in the bold scheme, is demonstrated. Sample codes are made available online along with extensive documentation. Towards the end, we discuss various extensions of the method and their applications. After working through these notes, the reader will be well equipped to explore the richness of the diagrammatic Monte Carlo method for quantum many-body systems.

Diagrammatic Monte Carlo study of Fröhlich polaron dispersion in two and three dimensions

We present results for the solution of the large polaron Fr\"ohlich Hamiltonian in 3-dimensions (3D) and 2-dimensions (2D) obtained via the Diagrammatic Monte Carlo (DMC) method. Our implementation is based on the approach by Mishchenko [A.S. Mishchenko et al., Phys. Rev. B 62, 6317 (2000)]. Polaron ground state energies and effective polaron masses are successfully benchmarked with data obtained using Feynman's path integral formalism. By comparing 3D and 2D data, we verify the analytically exact scaling relations for energies and effective masses from 3D$\to$2D, which provides a stringent test for the quality of DMC predictions. The accuracy of our results is further proven by providing values for the exactly known coefficients in weak- and strong coupling expansions. Moreover, we compute polaron dispersion curves which are validated with analytically known lower and upper limits in the small coupling regime and verify the first order expansion results for larger couplings, thus disproving previous critiques on the apparent incompatibility of DMC with analytical results and furnishing useful reference for a wide range of coupling strengths.

Optical signatures of exciton polarons from diagrammatic Monte Carlo

We study the interplay of electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions in the course of electron-hole bound state formation for gapped solid state systems. Adapting the essentially approximation-free diagrammatic Monte Carlo method for the calculation of the optical response, we discuss the absorption of light in correlated electron-phonon systems for the whole interaction and phonon frequency regimes. The spectral function obtained by analytical continuation from the imaginary-time current-current correlation function demonstrates the dressing of excitons by a phonon cloud when the coupling the lattice degrees of freedom becomes increasingly important, where notable differences show up between the adiabatic and anti-adiabatic cases.