Nested Cluster Algorithm for Frustrated Quantum Antiferromagnets.pdf

a r X i v : 0 8 0 3 .3 5 3 8 v 1 [ c o n d - m a t .s t r - e l ] 2 5 M a r 2 0 0 8 Nested Cluster Algorithm for Frustrated Quantum Antiferromagnets M. Nyfeler, F.-J. Jiang, F. Ka?mpfer, and U.-J. Wiese Institute for Theoretical Physics, Bern University, Sidlerstrasse 5, 3012 Bern, Switzerland Simulations of frustrated quantum antiferromagnets suffer from a severe sign problem. We solve the ergodicity problem of the loop-cluster algorithm in a natural way and apply a powerful strategy to address the sign problem. For the spin 1 2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a kagome? and on a frustrated square lattice, a nested cluster algorithm eliminates the sign problem for large systems. The method is applicable to general lattice geometries but limited to moderate temperatures. PACS numbers: 75.10Jm, 75.40Mg, 75.50.Ee Monte Carlo calculations are a powerful tool for first principles investigations of strongly coupled quantum systems. Early simulations of quantum spin systems were performed with local Metropolis-type algorithms [1]. They suffered from critical slowing down and were thus limited to rather high temperatures. Cluster al- gorithms perform non-local updates and are capable of substantially reducing critical slowing down. Such al- gorithms were first developed by Swendsen and Wang for discrete classical Ising and Potts spins [2] and then generalized by Wolff [3] to classical spins with a con- tinuous O(N) symmetry. Improved estimators which average over an exponentially large number of configu- rations at polynomial cost are an additional benefit of cluster algorithms. The first cluster algorithm for the spin 12 quantum Heisenberg model was developed in [4]. While that algorithm works efficiently only for quantum spin chains, the loop-cluster algorithm [5] is efficient also in higher dimensions, and was first applied to the 2-d spin 12 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a square lattice in [6]. The continuous-time variant of the algorithm elim- inates the Suzuki-