This is an overview of the semiclassical Monte-Carlo (SC-MC) method,
as used in the paper s used in the paper [[https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.7903]["Semi-classical spin dynamics of theantiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on the kagome lattice"]]. It uses the
method on a Kagome lattice, but it can be applied to any lattice. It
relies on the Heisenberg model, that is the \(S \rightarrow \infty\)
limit, with quantum spins replaced by unit vectors in
\(\R^3\).
Goal
This is used to compute the *dynamical structure factor*, also called
*scattering function*:
The problem is twofold. First, it is a dynamical problem, that is it
requires to solve the equations of motion of the system to see how
each spin evolve with time. Second, it is a statistical problem, in
the sense that the scattering function is defined as an average over
the canonical ensemble (fixed temperature \(T\)). This is why it will
be solve in a two steps process:
1. Sample from the canonical ensemble using MC methods
2. Evolve each sample in time using semi-classical methods
TODO The Monte-Carlo step
The single spin-flip Metropolis Hastings algorithm is used. However,
it can be quite inefficient at low temperature due to the number of
rejected samples. To reduce this effect, the solid angle for each spin
flip is reduced to keep the acceptance rate above 0.4. A pseudocode
implementation is given below:
Let S[i] the initial system state.
Repeat N_steps times:
While not accepted:
Choose a random site i.
Choose a random 3D unit vector S'.
Let E the energy of the state S[i].
Let E' the energy of the state S[i], with S[i] replaced with S'.
If E' < E:
Accept.
Else:
Accept with probability exp((E - E') / kT)
End If
End While
End Repeat
/How is actually implemented the solid angle constrained practically
?/ /Having a running estimator of the acceptance rate, and updating
the solid angle accordingly ?/
TODO Choice of parameters
Number of samples: 1000
Stride between two samples: enough such that the *stochastic
correlation* is less than 0.1.
/how is actually defined the stochastic correlation ? \(Corr(\{\vec
S_i\}, \{\vec S'_i\})\) ?/
TODO Overrelaxation
At low temperature, the system has trouble to get out of the local
minimum of energy to explore other regions of the phase space. To
mitigate this issue, an *overrelaxation* scheme is used. Recall that
the hamiltonian can be written in terms of the local field
\(h_\alpha(\vec R)\) at each site \((\vec R, \alpha)\):
\begin{equation*}
H = \sum_{\vec R \vec R', \alpha, \beta} J_{\alpha, \beta}(\vec R' - \vec R)
\vec S_\alpha(\vec R) \cdot \vec S_\beta(\vec R')
= \sum_{\vec R, \alpha} \vec h_\alpha(\vec R) \cdot \vec S_\alpha(\vec R)
\end{equation*}
One can see that the energy does not change if a spin is rotated,
while keeping the angle with its local field fixed. This is exploited
by the overrelaxation method. Each time a spin is selected, it is
first rotated around its local field, then assigned a random value. If
it is rejected, the rotation is still kept.
/Is it correct ? Especially, is it applied to each selected spin, or
only to failing ones ?/
Semiclasical spin dynamics
Using the Heisenberg picture equations of motion \(\pdiff{A}{t} =
i/\hbar [H, A]\), and the spin 1/2 commutation relation \([\hv S^i,
\hv S^j] = \varepsilon_{ijk} \hv S^k\), one can obtain the
(semiclassical) non-linear Bloch equations:
\begin{equation*}
\diff{s_i(t)}{t} = - s_i(t) \times
\left(
\sum_j J_{ij} s_j(t)
\right)
\end{equation*}
This equation is simply numerically integrated. An 8th order explicit
Runge-Kutta scheme is used.
TODO Choice of parameters
The RK error parameter as well as the RK order have been fixed in
order to preserve the Euclidean distance \(d = [\sum_i (\vec
s_i^{RK} - s_j^{BS})^2]^{1/2}\), i.e. the distance between time
trajectories obtained with the RK method and with the more robust but
time consuming Burlisch-Stoer (BS) algorithm.
/I could not find how the \(\frac{8(8-1)}2 = 28\) RK8 params are
defined, along with the timestep./