New Quantum Monte Carlo Method for Determining the Equation of State of One-Dimensional Fermions in Harmonic Traps

The system of interacting, trapped fermions in one dimension has been of interest in both the theoretical and experimental communities. This system is realizable experimentally using ultracold atoms in traps, where the interactions can be tuned to simulate a number of important situations in nuclear theory, condensed matter, quantum information, and QCD. Theoretically, however, this system remains a challenge to treat, and no known benchmarks exist for the ground state energy, Tan's contact, or density profiles for the few- to many-body regime. This project implements a lattice Monte Carlo (LMC) method to solve for these quantities. The method blends hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) - a pillar of lattice quantum chromodynamics (lattice QCD) - with a non-uniform lattice defined using Gauss-Hermite quadrature points and weights. This coordinate basis is the natural one for the harmonic oscillator trapping potential, and can be generalized to traps of other shapes. Using this method, we determine the ground-state energy and Tan's contact of attractively interacting few-fermion systems in a one-dimensional harmonic trap, for a range of couplings and particle numbers. Complementing those results, we show the corresponding density profiles. We present results for $N = 4,...,20$ particles - and the method is capable of extending beyond that. The method is the first lattice calculation of its kind, and is exact up to statistical and systematic uncertainties, which we account for. Our results are therefore a benchmark for other methods and a prediction for ultracold-atom experiments.OSU Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research ScholarshipNational Science Foundation Nuclear Theory Program Grant No. PHY1306520National Science Foundation REU Program Grant No. ACI1156614No embargoAcademic Major: Physic