Monte Carlo studies of the dynamical response of quantum many-body systems

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Abstract
We present a method to obtain dynamical correlation functions of quantum many-body systems in the real-frequency domain from Monte Carlo data of the corresponding imaginary-time Green’s functions. The method is based on a least-squares-fit procedure to solve the integral equation relating imaginary-time and real-frequency correlation functions. To demonstrate its feasibility, we have applied our method to imaginary-time Monte Carlo data for the density correlation function of a simple model of interacting spinless fermions in one dimension. We compare our results to the analytical results, available in the limits of zero and strong interaction. We find that despite the presence of noise in the input data, the real-frequency spectra obtained with our method are qualitatively correct. They reflect accurately the particle-hole and the soliton-antisoliton excitations, present in the noninteracting and in the strongly coupled fermion system, respectively. We also compare our method to other approaches that have been proposed for obtaining dynamical correlation functions via Monte Carlo simulation.