Quantum Monte Carlo approaches to nuclear and atomic physics

TL;DR

This paper reviews and compares Quantum Monte Carlo methods applied to nuclear physics and cold atomic gases, highlighting recent results on the properties of neutron matter and unitary Fermi gases.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of Quantum Monte Carlo results across nuclear and atomic systems, including new lattice and continuum findings.

Findings

Updated lattice results for the energy of the homogeneous unitary Fermi gas

Comparisons of cold atom energy dependence on particle mass ratio

New results for harmonically trapped unitary gases

Abstract

Quantum Monte Carlo methods have proven to be valuable in the study of strongly correlated quantum systems, particularly nuclear physics and cold atomic gases. Historically, such ab initio simulations have been used to study properties of light nuclei, including spectra and form factors, low-energy scattering, and high-momentum properties including inclusive scattering and one- and two-body momentum distributions. More recently they have been used to study the properties of homogeneous and inhomogeneous neutron matter and cold atomic gases. There are close analogies between these seemingly diverse systems, including the equation of state, superfluid pairing, and linear response to external probes. In this paper, we compare and contrast results found in nuclear and cold atom physics. We show updated lattice results for the energy of the homogeneous unitary Fermi gas and comparisons with neutron matter, as well as for the dependence of the cold atom energy on the mass ratio between paired particles, which yields insights on the structure of the ground state. We also provide new lattice and continuum results for the harmonically trapped unitary gas, again comparing neutron matter and cold atoms.