Ab initio quantum Monte Carlo simulation of the warm dense electron gas

Abstract

Warm dense matter is one of the most active frontiers in plasma physics due to its relevance for dense astrophysical objects as well as for novel laboratory experiments in which matter is being strongly compressed e.g. by high-power lasers. Its description is theoretically very challenging as it contains correlated quantum electrons at nite temperature|a system that cannot be accurately modeled by standard analytical or ground state approaches. Recently several breakthroughs have been achieved in the eld of fermionic quantum Monte Carlo simulations. First, it was shown that exact simulations of a nite model system (30 : : : 100 electrons) is possible that avoid any simplifying approximations such as xed nodes [Schoof et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 130402 (2015)]. Second, a novel way to accurately extrapolate these results to the thermodynamic limit was reported by Dornheim et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 156403 (2016)]. As a result, now thermodynamic results for the warm dense electron gas are available that have an unprecedented accuracy on the order of 0:1%. Here we present an overview on these results and discuss limitations and future directions.