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Raising the temperature on the electron gas
Ethan Brown, ETH Zürich
08.05.2015 at 09:00
The homogeneous electron gas represents an important model system because of its ability to be tuned from strongly degeneracy to strongly interactions with a single parameter. However, arguably its greatest impact has been its role in the formulation of ground state density functional theory. There accurate quantum Monte Carlo estimates of the exchange-correlation energy have been crucial for the general validation of the now ubiquitous computational method. Currently researchers would like to extend this success to finite-temperatures, requiring analogous quantum Monte Carlo estimates which we are providing. In this lecture, we will discuss the historical place of the electron gas in quantum Monte Carlo, as well as our current work with path integral Monte Carlo to accurately model it. Further, we will present two novel extensions to path integral Monte Carlo which will allow us to drastically improve the accuracy of thermodynamic estimates in both the electron gas as well as any fermionic system.
A 449 - Theresienstr. 37