On the thermodynamic properties of fictitious identical particles and the application to fermion sign problem

Abstract

By generalizing the recently developed path integral molecular dynamics for identical bosons and fermions, we consider the finite-temperature thermodynamic properties of fictitious identical particles with a real parameter ζ interpolating continuously between bosons (ζ = 1) and fermions (ζ = -1). Through general analysis and numerical experiments, we find that the average energy may have good analytical properties as a function of this real parameter ζ, which provides the chance to calculate the thermodynamical properties of identical fermions by extrapolation with a simple polynomial function after accurately calculating the thermodynamic properties of the fictitious particles for ζ ≥ 0. Using several examples, it is shown that our method can efficiently give accurate energy values for finite-temperature fermionic systems. Our work provides a chance to circumvent the fermion sign problem for some quantum systems.