Concentrated Monte Carlo sampling for local observables in quantum spin chains

Abstract

Monte Carlo methods are widely used to estimate observables in many-body quantum systems. However, conventional sampling schemes often require a large number of samples to achieve sufficient accuracy. In this work we propose the concentrated Monte Carlo sampling approach, which builds on the idea that in systems with only short range correlations, to obtain accurate expectation values for local observables, one would favor detailed information in the surroundings of this observable compared to far away from it. In this approach we consider all possible configurations in the surroundings of a local observable, and unique samples from the remaining of the setup drawn using Markov chain Monte Carlo. We have tested the performance of this approach for ground states of the spin-1/2 tilted Ising model in different phases, and also for thermal states in the a spin-1 bilinear-biquadratic model. Our results demonstrate that CMCS yields higher accuracy for local observables in short-range correlated states while requiring substantially fewer samples, showcasing in which regimes one can obtain acceleration for the evaluation of expectation values.