In this talk I review the proposal to formulate quantum field theories (QFTs) on a Lefschetz thimble, which was put forward to enable Monte Carlo simulations of lattice QFTs affected by sign problem. First I will review the theoretical justification of the approach, and comment on some open issues. Then, I will review the algorithms that have been proposed and are being tested to represent and simulate a lattice QFT on a Lefschetz thimble. In particular, I will review the lessons from the very first models of QFTs that have been studied with this approach.
We develop a way of improving complex Langevin dynamics motivated by the Lefschetz-thimble decomposition of integrals. In our method, arbitrary observables of an original model with multiple Lefschetz thimbles are computed by a modified model with a single thimble. We apply our modification method to a one dimensional integral in which the naive implementation of the complex Langevin dynamics fails to reproduce the exact results due to the severe sign problem. We show that the toy model can be modified so that the new model consists of a single Lefschetz thimble. We find that correct results c…
The complexification of field variables is an elegant approach to attack the sign problem. In one approach one integrates on Lefschetz thimbles: over them, the imaginary part of the action stays constant and can be factored out of the integrals so that on each thimble the sign problem disappears. However, for systems in which more than one thimble contribute one is faced with the challenging task of collecting contributions coming from multiple thimbles. The Thirring model is a nice playground to test multi-thimble integration techniques; even in a low dimensional theory, the thimble structure…
In these proceedings, we summarize the Lefschetz thimble approach to the sign problem of Quantum Field Theories. In particular, we review its motivations, and we summarize the results of the application of two different algorithms to two test models.
The QCD at finite density is not well understood yet, where standard Monte Carlo simulation suffers from the sign problem. In order to overcome the sign problem, the method of Lefschetz thimble has been explored. Basically, the original sign problem can be less severe in a complexified theory due to the constancy of the imaginary part of an action on each thimble. However, global phase factors assigned on each thimble still remain. Their interference is not negligible in a situation where a large number of thimbles contribute to the partition function, and this could also lead to a sign proble…
Non-perturbative lattice QCD calculations at non vanishing baryon number density are hampered by the QCD sign problem. The path integral, that in lattice QCD is calculated numerically, becomes highly oscillating. One possible solution is the Lefschetz thimble approach. It requires a deformation of the original integration domain into a manifold embedded in complex space. For properly chosen integration manifolds ("thimbles") the sign problem is drastically alleviated. For some bosonic and fermionic models this approach has been shown to work. Here we apply the thimble disretization to (0+1)-di…
Lefschetz thimbles have been proposed recently as a possible solution to the complex action problem (sign problem) in Monte Carlo simulations. Here we discuss pure abelian gauge theory with a complex coupling $β$ and apply the concept of Generalized Lefschetz thimbles. We propose to simulate the theory on the union of the tangential manifolds to the thimbles. We construct a local Metropolis-type algorithm, that is constrained to a specific tangential manifold. We also discuss how, starting from this result, successive subleading tangential manifolds can be taken into account via a reweighting …
Recently, we have proposed a novel approach (arxiv:1205.3996) to deal with the sign problem that hinders Monte Carlo simulations of many quantum field theories (QFTs). The approach consists in formulating the QFT on a Lefschetz thimble. In this paper we concentrate on the application to a scalar field theory with a sign problem. In particular, we review the formulation and the justification of the approach, and we also describe the Aurora Monte Carlo algorithm that we are currently testing.
We investigate Lefschetz thimble structure of the complexified path-integration in the one-dimensional lattice massive Thirring model with finite chemical potential. The lattice model is formulated with staggered fermions and a compact auxiliary vector boson (a link field), and the whole set of the critical points (the complex saddle points) are sorted out, where each critical point turns out to be in a one-to-one correspondence with a singular point of the effective action (or a zero point of the fermion determinant). For a subset of critical point solutions in the uniform-field subspace, we …
At finite density, lattice simulations are hindered by the well-known sign problem: for finite chemical potentials, the QCD action becomes complex and the Boltzmann weight $e^{-S}$ cannot be interpreted as a probability distribution to determine expectation values by Monte Carlo techniques. Different workarounds have been devised to study the QCD phase diagram, but their application is mostly limited to the region of small chemical potentials. The Lefschetz thimbles method takes a new approach in which one complexifies the theory and deforms the integration paths. By integrating over Lefschetz…
A solution to the sign problem is the so-called "Lefschetz thimble approach" where the domain of integration for field variables in the path integral is deformed from the real axis to a sub-manifold in the complex space. For properly chosen sub-manifolds ("thimbles") the sign problem disappears or is drastically alleviated. The parametrization of the thimble by real coordinates require the calculation of a jacobian with a computational cost of order O(V^3), where V is proportional to the spacetime volume. In this note we propose two estimators for this jacobian with a computational cost of ord…
We propose an efficient method to compute the so-called residual phase that appears when performing Monte Carlo calculations on a Lefschetz thimble. The method is stochastic and its cost scales linearly with the physical volume, linearly with the number of stochastic estimators and quadratically with the length of the extra dimension along the gradient flow. This is a drastic improvement over previous estimates of the cost of computing the residual phase. We also report on basic tests of correctness and scaling of the code.
The complex Langevin method and the generalized Lefschetz-thimble method are two closely related approaches to the sign problem, which are both based on complexification of the original dynamical variables. The former can be viewed as a generalization of the stochastic quantization using the Langevin equation, whereas the latter is a deformation of the integration contour using the so-called holomorphic gradient flow. In order to clarify their relationship, we propose a formulation which combines the two methods by applying the former method to the real variables that parametrize the deformed …
Recently there has been remarkable progress in solving the sign problem, which occurs in investigating statistical systems with a complex weight. The two promising methods, the complex Langevin method and the Lefschetz thimble method, share the idea of complexifying the dynamical variables, but their relationship has not been clear. Here we propose a unified formulation, in which the sign problem is taken care of by both the Langevin dynamics and the holomorphic gradient flow. We apply our formulation to a simple model in three different ways and show that one of them interpolates the two meth…
Based on the Lefschetz thimble formulation of path-integration, we analyze the (0+1) dimensional Thirring model at finite chemical potentials and perform hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) simulations. We adopt the lattice action defined with the staggered fermion and a compact link field for the auxiliary vector field. We firstly locate the critical points (saddle points) of the gradient flows within the subspace of time-independent (complex) link field, and study the thiemble structure and the Stokes phenomenon to identify the thimbles which contribute to the path-integral. Then, we perform HMC simula…
We point out that Monte Carlo simulations of theories with severe sign problems can be profitably performed over manifolds in complex space different from the one with fixed imaginary part of the action. We describe a family of such manifolds that interpolate between the tangent space at one critical point, where the sign problem is milder compared to the real plane but in some cases still severe, and the union of relevant thimbles, where the sign problem is mild but a multimodal distribution function complicates the Monte Carlo sampling. We exemplify this approach using a simple 0 + 1 dimensi…
Lattice field theories with a complex action can be studied numerically by allowing a complexified configuration space to be explored. Here we compare the recently introduced formulation on a Lefschetz thimble with the result from stochastic quantisation (or complex Langevin dynamics) in the case of a simple model and contrast the distributions being sampled. We also study the role of the residual phase on the Lefschetz thimble.
We propose new gradient flows that define Lefschetz thimbles and do not blow up in a finite flow time. We study analytic properties of these gradient flows, and confirm them by numerical tests in simple examples.
The generalized thimble method to treat field theories with sign problems requires repeatedly solving the computationally-expensive holomorphic flow equations. We present a machine learning technique to bypass this problem. The central idea is to obtain a few field configurations via the flow equations to train a feed-forward neural network. The trained network defines a new manifold of integration which reduces the sign problem and can be rapidly sampled. We present results for the $1+1$ dimensional Thirring model with Wilson fermions on sizable lattices. In addition to the gain in speed, the…
We consider the one-dimensional massive Thirring model formulated on the lattice with staggered fermions and an auxiliary compact vector (link) field, which is exactly solvable and shows a phase transition with increasing the chemical potential of fermion number: the crossover at a finite temperature and the first order transition at zero temperature. We complexify its path-integration on Lefschetz thimbles and examine its phase transition by hybrid Monte Carlo simulations on the single dominant thimble. We observe a discrepancy between the numerical and exact results in the crossover region f…
In this paper, by analyzing the underlying Lefschetz thimble structure, we study quantum phases in zero-dimensional scalar field theories with complex actions. Using first principles, we derive the Lefschetz thimble equations of these models, and discuss the issues when we apply the same calculations for more complicated systems. We also derive the conditional expressions involving relations among the parameters of the model, that would help us predict quantum phase transitions in these systems.
Deforming the domain of integration after complexification of the field variables is an intriguing idea to tackle the sign problem. In thimble regularization the domain of integration is deformed into an union of manifolds called Lefschetz thimbles. On each thimble the imaginary part of the action stays constant and the sign problem disappears. A long standing issue of this approach is how to determine the relative weight to assign to each thimble contribution in the (multi)-thimble decomposition. Yet this is an issue one has to face, as previous work has shown that different theories exist fo…
The Picard-Lefschetz theory offers a promising tool to solve the sign problem in QCD and other field theories with complex path-integral weight. In this paper the Lefschetz-thimble approach is examined in simple fermionic models which share some features with QCD. In zero-dimensional versions of the Gross-Neveu model and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model, we study the structure of Lefschetz thimbles and its variation across the chiral phase transition. We map out a phase diagram in the complex four-fermion coupling plane using a thimble decomposition of the path integral, and demonstrate an interes…
The numerical sign problem has long been a major obstacle to first-principles calculations in various important fields of physics. We report that the recently proposed algorithm, tempered Lefschetz thimble method (TLTM), and its worldvolume extension (WV-TLTM) can be a promising solution in its trustability and versatility.
We consider multi-flavor massless $(1+1)$-dimensional QED with chemical potentials at finite spatial length and the zero-temperature limit. Its sign problem is solved using the mean-field calculation with complex saddle points.
One of the main challenges in simulations on Lefschetz thimbles is the computation of the relative weights of contributing thimbles. In this paper we propose a solution to that problem by means of computing those weights using a reweighting procedure. Besides we present recipes for finding parametrizations of thimbles and anti-thimbles for a given theory. Moreover, we study some approaches to combine the Lefschetz thimble method with the Complex Langevin evolution. Our numerical investigations are carried out by using toy models among which we consider a one-site z^4 model as well as a U(1) on…
The sign problem of finite-density QCD at the zero temperature becomes very severe if the quark chemical potential exceeds half of the pion mass. In order to understand its property, we consider the sign problem of the one-site fermion model appearing in its path-integral expression by using the Lefschetz-thimble method. We show that the original integration cycle becomes decomposed into multiple Lefschetz thimbles at a certain value of the fermion chemical potential, which would correspond to half of the pion mass of finite-density QCD. This triggers a fictitious phase transition on each Lefs…
Thimble regularisation is a possible solution to the sign problem, which is evaded by formulating quantum field theories on manifolds where the imaginary part of the action stays constant (Lefschetz thimbles). A major obstacle is due to the fact that one in general needs to collect contributions coming from more than one thimble. Here we explore the idea of performing Taylor expansions on Lefschetz thimbles. We show that in some cases we can compute expansions in regions where only the dominant thimble contributes to the result in such a way that these (different, disjoint) regions can be brid…
The Lefschetz thimble method, i.e., the integration along the steepest descent cycles, is an idea to evade the sign problem by complexifying the theory. We discuss that such steepest descent cycles can be identified as ground-state wave-functions of a supersymmetric Hamilton dynamics, which is described with a framework akin to the complex Langevin method. We numerically construct the wave-functions on a grid using a toy model and confirm their well-localized behavior.
Lefschetz thimbles and complex Langevin dynamics both provide a means to tackle the numerical sign problem prevalent in theories with a complex weight in the partition function, e.g. due to nonzero chemical potential. Here we collect some findings for the quartic model, and for U(1) and SU(2) models in the presence of a determinant, which have some features not discussed before, due to a singular drift. We find evidence for a relation between classical runaways and stable thimbles, and give an example of a degenerate fixed point. We typically find that the distributions sampled in complex Lang…
One strategy for reducing the sign problem in finite-density field theories is to deform the path integral contour from real to complex fields. If the deformed manifold is the appropriate combination of Lefschetz thimbles -- or somewhat close to them -- the sign problem is alleviated. Gauge theories lack a well-defined thimble decomposition, and therefore it is unclear how to carry out a generalized thimble method. In this paper we discuss some of the conceptual issues involved by applying this method to $QED_{1+1}$ at finite density, showing that the generalized thimble method yields correct …
We propose a new algorithm based on the Metropolis sampling method to perform Monte Carlo integration for path integrals in the recently proposed formulation of quantum field theories on the Lefschetz thimble. The algorithm is based on a mapping between the curved manifold defined by the Lefschetz thimble of the full action and the flat manifold associated with the corresponding quadratic action. We discuss an explicit method to calculate the residual phase due to the curvature of the Lefschetz thimble. Finally, we apply this new algorithm to a simple one-plaquette model where our results are …
Is it worth the effort to find Lefschetz thimbles? Integration contours with numerically optimal signal-to-noise ratios in simple fermionic toy models
ELTE Eötvös Loránd University（罗兰大学）；MTA-ELTE Lendület “Momentum” Strongly Interacting Matter Research Group（MTA-ELTE 力场强相互作用物质研究组）；Department of Computational Sciences, HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics（匈牙利研究与教育网络维格纳物理研究中心计算科学系）；Pennsylvania State University（宾夕法尼亚州立大学）
The Lefschetz-thimble approach to path integrals is applied to a one-site model of electrons, i.e., the one-site Hubbard model. Since the one-site Hubbard model shows a non-analytic behavior at the zero temperature and its path integral expression has the sign problem, this toy model is a good testing ground for an idea or a technique to attack the sign problem. Semiclassical analysis using complex saddle points unveils the significance of interference among multiple Lefschetz thimbles to reproduce the non-analytic behavior by using the path integral. If the number of Lefschetz thimbles is ins…
The worldvolume tempered Lefschetz thimble method (WV-TLTM) is an algorithm towards solving the sign problem, where hybrid Monte Carlo updates are performed on a continuous accumulation of flowed surfaces foliated by the anti-holomorphic gradient flow (the worldvolume of integration surface). Sharing the advantage with the original tempered Lefschetz thimble method (TLTM) that the sign problem is resolved without introducing the ergodicity problem, the new algorithm is expected to significantly reduce the computational cost, because it eliminates the need to compute the Jacobian of the flow in…
The numerical sign problem is a major obstacle to the quantitative understanding of many important physical systems with first-principles calculations. Typical examples for such systems include finite-density QCD, strongly-correlated electron systems and frustrated spin systems, as well as the real-time dynamics of quantum systems. In this talk, we argue that the "tempered Lefschetz thimble method" (TLTM) [M. Fukuma and N. Umeda, arXiv:1703.00861] and its extension, the "worldvolume tempered Lefschetz thimble method" (WV-TLTM) [M. Fukuma and N. Matsumoto, arXiv:2012.08468], may be a reliable a…
We present a novel reweighting technique to calculate the relative weights in the Lefschetz thimble decomposition of a path integral. Our method is put to work using a $U(1)$ one-link model providing for a suitable testing ground and sharing many features with realistic gauge theories with fermions at finite density. We discuss prospects and future challenges to our method.
The fermion sign problem appearing in the mean-field approximation is considered, and the systematic computational scheme of the free energy is devised by using the Lefschetz-thimble method. We show that the Lefschetz-thimble method respects the reflection symmetry, which makes physical quantities manifestly real at any order of approximations using complex saddle points. The formula is demonstrated through the Airy integral as an example, and its application to the Polyakov-loop effective model of dense QCD is discussed in detail.
The concept of Lefschetz thimble decomposition is one of the most promising possible modifications of Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) algorithms aimed at alleviating the sign problem which appears in many interesting physical situations, e.g. in the Hubbard model away from half filling. In this approach one utilizes the fact that the integral over real variables with an integrand containing a complex fluctuating phase is equivalent to the sum of integrals over special manifolds in complex space ("Lefschetz thimbles"), each of them having a fixed complex phase factor. Thus, the sign problem can be re…
We study the sign problem in the Hubbard model on the hexagonal lattice away from half-filling using the Lefschetz thimbles method. We identify the saddle points, reduce their amount, and perform quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations using the holomorphic gradient flow to deform the integration contour in complex space. Finally, the results are compared against exact diagonalization (ED). We show that the sign problem can be substantially weakened, even in the regime with low temperature and large chemical potential, where standard QMC techniques exhibit an exponential decay of the average sig…
The tempered Lefschetz thimble method (TLTM) is a parallel-tempering algorithm towards solving the numerical sign problem, where the system is tempered by the antiholomorphic gradient flow to tame both the sign and ergodicity problems simultaneously. In this paper, we implement the hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithm for transitions on each flowed surface, expecting that this implementation on TLTM will give a useful framework for future computations of large-scale systems including fermions. Although the use of HMC in Lefschetz thimble methods has been proposed so far, our crucial achievement …
We consider a hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm which is applicable to lattice theories defined on Lefschetz thimbles. In the algorithm, any point (field configuration) on a thimble is parametrized uniquely by the flow-direction and the flow-time defined at a certain asymptotic region close to the critical point, and it is generated by solving the gradient flow equation downward. The associated complete set of tangent vectors is also generated in the same manner. Molecular dynamics is then formulated as a constrained dynamical system, where the equations of motion with Lagrange multipliers are solv…
The tempered Lefschetz thimble method (TLTM) is a parallel-tempering algorithm towards solving the numerical sign problem. It tames both the sign and ergodicity problems simultaneously by tempering the system with the flow time of continuous deformations of the integration region. In this article, after reviewing the basics of the TLTM, we explain a new algorithm within the TLTM that enables us to estimate the expectation values precisely with a criterion ensuring global equilibrium and the sufficiency of the sample size. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm, we apply the TLTM to …
We present the first practical Monte Carlo calculations of the recently proposed Lefschetz thimble formulation of quantum field theories. Our results provide strong evidence that the numerical sign problem that afflicts Monte Carlo calculations of models with complex actions can be softened significantly by changing the domain of integration to the Lefschetz thimble or approximations thereof. We study the interacting complex scalar field theory (relativistic Bose gas) in lattices of size up to 8^4 using a computationally inexpensive approximation of the Lefschetz thimble. Our results are in ex…
As a solution towards the numerical sign problem, we propose a novel Hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm, in which molecular dynamics is performed on a continuum set of integration surfaces foliated by the antiholomorphic gradient flow ("the worldvolume of an integration surface"). This is an extension of the tempered Lefschetz thimble method (TLTM), and solves the sign and multimodal problems simultaneously as the original TLTM does. Furthermore, in this new algorithm, one no longer needs to compute the Jacobian of the gradient flow in generating a configuration, and only needs to evaluate its phase…
Zero-dimensional $O(n)$-symmetric sigma models are studied by using Picard--Lefschetz integration method in the presence of small symmetry-breaking perturbations. Due to approximate symmetry, downward flows turn out to show significant structures: They slowly travel along the set of pseudo classical points, and branch into other directions so as to span middle-dimensional integration cycles. We propose an efficient way to find such slow motions for computing Lefschetz thimbles. In the limit of symmetry restoration, we figure out that only special combinations of Lefschetz thimbles can survive …
The sign problem of relativistic field theories at finite fermion chemical potential has been approached by deforming the domain of integration into complex field space. We present a method for selecting a deformed manifold of integration which is a local maximum of the average phase, and demonstrate this method on the three-dimensional Thirring model. Finally, we compare the performance of this method, in the heavy-dense limit, to direct integration on the Lefschetz thimbles.
We follow up the work, where in light of the Picard-Lefschetz thimble approach, we split up the real-time path integral into two parts: the initial density matrix part which can be represented via an ensemble of initial conditions, and the dynamic part of the path integral which corresponds to the integration over field variables at all later times. This turns the path integral into a two-stage problem where, for each initial condition, there exits one and only one critical point and hence a single thimble in the complex space, whose existence and uniqueness are guaranteed by the characteristi…
A possible solution of the notorious sign problem preventing direct Monte Carlo calculations for systems with non-zero chemical potential is to deform the integration region in the complex plane to a Lefschetz thimble. We investigate this approach for a simple fermionic model. We introduce an easy to implement Monte Carlo algorithm to sample the dominant thimble. Our algorithm relies only on the integration of the gradient flow in the numerically stable direction, which gives it a distinct advantage over the other proposed algorithms. We demonstrate the stability and efficiency of the algorith…
The tempered Lefschetz thimble method is a parallel-tempering algorithm towards solving the numerical sign problem. It uses the flow time of the gradient flow as a tempering parameter and is expected to tame both the sign and multimodal problems simultaneously. In this paper, we further develop the algorithm so that the expectation values can be estimated precisely with a criterion ensuring global equilibrium and the sufficiency of the sample size. To demonstrate that this algorithm works well, we apply it to the quantum Monte Carlo simulation of the Hubbard model away from half-filling on a t…
Monte Carlo simulations are useful tools for modeling quantum systems, but in some cases they suffer from a sign problem, leading to an exponential slow down in their convergence to a value. While solving the sign problem is generically NP-hard, many techniques exist for mitigating the sign problem in specific cases; in particular, the technique of deforming the Monte Carlo simulation's plane of integration onto Lefschetz thimbles (complex hypersurfaces of stationary phase) has seen significant success in the context of quantum field theories. We extend this methodology to spin systems by util…
We propose a novel simulation strategy for Yang-Mills theories with a complex coupling, based on the Lefschetz thimble decomposition. We envisage, that the approach developed in the present work, can also be adapted to QCD at finite density, and real time simulations. Simulations with Lefschetz thimbles offer a potential solution to sign problems in Monte Carlo calculations within many different models with complex actions. We discuss the structure of Generalized Lefschetz thimbles for pure Yang-Mills theories with a complex gauge coupling $β$ and show how to incorporate the gauge orbits. We p…
We propose a framework to study the properties of the Lefschetz thimbles decomposition for lattice fermion models approaching the thermodynamic limit. The proposed set of algorithms includes the Schur complement solver and the exact computation of the derivatives of the fermion determinant. It allows us to solve the gradient flow (GF) equations taking into account the fermion determinant exactly, with high performance. We can find both real and complex saddle points and describe the structure of the Lefschetz thimbles decomposition for large enough lattices to extrapolate the results to the th…
We discuss two problems in complexified auxiliary fields in fermionic effective models, the auxiliary sign problem associated with the repulsive vector-field and the choice of the cut for the scalar field appearing from the logarithmic function. In the fermionic effective models with attractive scalar and repulsive vector-type interaction, the auxiliary scalar and vector fields appear in the path integral after the bosonization of fermion ilinears. When we make the path integral well-defined by the Wick rotation of the vector field, the oscillating Boltzmann weight appears in the partition fun…
We compute numerically the Lorentzian Engle-Pereira-Rovelli-Livine (EPRL) spinfoam propagator on a 4-simplex, by adapting the methods of Lefschetz thimble and Markov Chain Monte-Carlo to oscillatory spinfoam integrals. Our method can compute any spinfoam observables at relatively large spins. We obtain the numerical results of the propagators at different spins and demonstrate their consistency with the expected spinfoam semi-classical behavior in the large spin limit. Our results exhibit significant quantum corrections at smaller spins. Our method is reliable and thus can be employed to disco…
This is an introductory level review of recent applications of resurgent trans-series and Picard-Lefschetz theory to quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. Resurgence connects local perturbative data with global topological structure. In quantum mechanical systems, this program provides a constructive relation between different saddles. For example, in certain cases it has been shown that all information around the instanton saddle is encoded in perturbation theory around the perturbative saddle. In quantum field theory, such as sigma models compactified on a circle, neutral bions provide…
