Worldline Monte Carlo method for few body nuclear physics

Abstract

In this work we introduce a worldline based fermion Monte Carlo algorithm for studying few body quantum mechanics of self-interacting fermions in the Hamiltonian lattice formulation. Our motivation to construct the method comes from our interest in studying renormalization of chiral nuclear effective field theory with lattice regularization. In particular we wish to apply our method to compute the lattice spacing dependence of local lattice interactions as we take the continuum limit of the lattice theory. Our algorithm can compute matrix elements of the operator $\exp(-βH)$ where $H$ is the lattice Hamiltonian and $β$ is a free real parameter. These elements help us compute deep bound states that are well separated from scattering states even at values of $β$ which are not very large. Computing these bound state energies accurately can help us study renormalization of the lattice theory. In addition to developing the algorithm, in this work we also introduce a finite volume renormalization scheme for the lattice Hamiltonian of the leading pionless effective field theory and show how it would work in the one and two body sectors.