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My PhD thesis - Condensed Matter Theory - Imperial College London

My PhD thesis - Condensed Matter Theory - Imperial College London

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Chapter 3<br />

Quantum Monte Carlo methods<br />

The term ‘Quantum Monte Carlo’ embraces several different techniques for solving<br />

the quantum many-body problem, all of which employ random sampling. This<br />

chapter will (briefly) describe the theory behind two of these techniques: variational<br />

and fixed-node diffusion QMC. 1 Both are zero-temperature methods, and both are<br />

routinely used in the calculation of properties of real solids. An important aspect of<br />

the application of this theory — the general form of the trial wave function — will<br />

also be described.<br />

The aim of this chapter is not to present all the technical details associated<br />

with implementing a modern QMC algorithm; rather, the fundamental ideas which<br />

underlie the technique will be described, along with some of the more important<br />

aspects of the implementation. All the QMC calculations contained in this <strong>thesis</strong><br />

were carried out using the CASINO program developed in Cambridge [61].<br />

1 These versions of QMC are discussed in detail in the review by Foulkes and coworkers [24],<br />

and, along with various others, in the book by Hammond et al. [30].<br />

30

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