Quantum Monte Carlo study of correlated electronic systems

Chen, Li

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/99333 Copy

Description

Title

Quantum Monte Carlo study of correlated electronic systems

Author(s)

Chen, Li

Issue Date

2017-11-30

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Wagner, Lucas K.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Ceperley, David M.

Committee Member(s)

• Gollin, George D.
• Abbamonte, Peter M.

Department of Study

Physics

Discipline

Physics

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Quantum Monte Carlo
• Correlated systems

Abstract

Describing correlated electron systems has been a major challenge in computational condensed-matter physics. Quantum Monte Carlo, a powerful computational tool for the study of correlated systems, solves electron correlation problems explicitly. It has been taken as a benchmark method for understanding the correlated systems. Instead of making approximations to Hamiltonian, QMC methods work with the wave functions, and the computational cost scales well with the system size. With the development of parallel computing, QMC calculations on large systems are becoming more and more feasible. We have investigated two correlated systems with highly accurate fixed node QMC techniques. The first system is a correlated hydrogen model system near the metal to insulator transition. We have successfully identified the transition point by calculating spin and charge properties and analyzing the low energy Hilbert space. The second one is a strongly correlated Fe/O system. Calculations on the Fe atoms, O atoms, and FeO molecules are conducted with multiple highly accurate many-body techniques. The source of errors has been disentangled by comparing the results of the many body techniques with the experimental results. For the Fe and O atoms, the calculated properties coincide well with previous experimental results. For the basis-based techniques, the performance is mainly limited by the basis set. The calculated equilibrium bond length, excitation energy and vibrational frequency of the FeO molecules are also in close agreement with the known values from previous experiments.

Graduation Semester

2017-12

Type of Resource

text

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99333

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2017 Li Chen

Owning Collections