English

Path Integral Ground State study of 2D solid 4He

Other Condensed Matter 2008-02-01 v3 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We have studied a two-dimensional triangular commensurate crystal of 4He with the exact T=0 K Path Integral Ground State (PIGS) Monte Carlo method. We have projected onto the true ground state both a Jastrow-Nosanow wave function, in which equilibrium positions are explicitly given and no Bose-Einstein (BEC) is present, and a translationally invariant shadow wave function, in which the solid phase emerges through a spontaneously broken symmetry process and it has BEC. We find a remarkable convergence to the same properties, both the diagonal ones as well as the off-diagonal one-body density matrix rho_1. This supplies a strong evidence that no variational bias are present in the PIGS method. We find no BEC in the commensurate 2D 4He crystal at T=0 K, rho_1 shows an exponential decay in the large distance range. The structure found in rho_1 is due to virtual vacancy--interstitial pairs and this shows up in the momentum distribution.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0801.1753,
  title  = {Path Integral Ground State study of 2D solid 4He},
  author = {E. Vitali and M. Rossi and F. Tramonto and D. E. Galli and L. Reatto},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0801.1753},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

4 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:01:57.097Z