arXiv subjects

Zhenning Cai

Publications and source records attributed to Zhenning Cai.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

The Wigner Function of Ground State and One-Dimensional Numerics

In this paper, the ground state Wigner function of a many-body system is explored theoretically and numerically. First, an eigenvalue problem for Wigner function is derived based on the energy operator of the system. The validity of finding the ground state through solving this eigenvalue problem is obtained by building a correspondence between its solution and the solution of stationary Schrödinger equation. Then, a numerical method is designed for solving proposed eigenvalue problem in one dimensional case, which can be briefly described by i) a simplified model is derived based on a quantum hydrodynamic model [Z. Cai et al, J. Math. Chem., 2013] to reduce the dimension of the problem, ii) an imaginary time propagation method is designed for solving the model, and numerical techniques such as solution reconstruction are proposed for the feasibility of the method. Results of several numerical experiments verify our method, in which the potential application of the method for large scale system is demonstrated by examples with density functional theory.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Flows Between Parallel Plates: Analytical Solutions of Regularized 13-Moment Equations for Inverse-Power-Law Models

We study the structure of stationary channel flows predicted by the regularized 13-moment equations. Compared with the previous work [P. Taheri et al., Phys. Fluids, 21 (2009), 017102], we focus on gases whose molecules satisfy the general inverse power law. The analytical solutions are obtained for the semi-linear equations, and the structures of Couette, Fourier, and Poiseuille flows are solved by coupling the general solutions with newly derived boundary conditions. The results show excellent agreement with the reference solution in the slip-flow regime. Our results also show that the R13 equations derived from inverse power law models can have better accuracy than the R13 equations of Maxwell molecules with altered viscosity.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2020

On the validity of complex Langevin method for path integral computations

The complex Langevin (CL) method is a classical numerical strategy to alleviate the numerical sign problem in the computation of lattice field theories. Mathematically, it is a simple numerical tool to compute a wide class of high-dimensional and oscillatory integrals. However, it is often observed that the CL method converges but the limiting result is incorrect. The literature has several unclear or even conflicting statements, making the method look mysterious. By an in-depth analysis of a model problem, we reveal the mechanism of how the CL result turns biased as the parameter changes, and it is demonstrated that such a transition is difficult to capture. Our analysis also shows that the method works for any observables only if the probability density function generated by the CL process is localized. To generalize such observations to lattice field theories, we formulate the CL method on general groups using rigorous mathematical languages for the first time, and we demonstrate that such localized probability density function does not exist in the simulation of lattice field theories for general compact groups, which explains the unstable behavior of the CL method. Fortunately, we also find that the gauge cooling technique creates additional velocity that helps confine the samples, so that we can still see localized probability density functions in certain cases, as significantly broadens the application of the CL method. The limitations of gauge cooling are also discussed. In particular, we prove that gauge cooling has no effect for Abelian groups, and we provide an example showing that biased results still exist when gauge cooling is insufficient to confine the probability density function.

math.NA↗

arXiv2020

Accurate and efficient calculation of photoionization in streamer discharges using fast multipole method

This paper focuses on the three-dimensional simulation of the photoionization in streamer discharges, and provides a general framework to efficiently and accurately calculate the photoionization model using the integral form. The simulation is based on the kernel-independent fast multipole method. The accuracy of this method is studied quantitatively for different domains and various pressures in comparison with other existing models based on partial differential equations (PDEs). The comparison indicates the numerical error of the fast multipole method is much smaller than those of other PDE-based methods, with the reference solution given by direct numerical integration. Such accuracy can be achieved with affordable computational cost, and its performance in both efficiency and accuracy is quite stable for different domains and pressures. Meanwhile, the simulation accelerated by the fast multipole method exhibits good scalability using up to 1280 cores, which shows its capability of three-dimensional simulations using parallel (distributed) computing. The difference of the proposed method and other efficient approximations are also studied in a three-dimensional dynamic problem where two streamers interact.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2020

Alternating Descent Method for Gauge Cooling of Complex Langevin Simulations

We study the gauge cooling technique for the complex Langevin method applied to the computation in lattice quantum chromodynamics. We propose a new solver of the minimization problem that optimizes the gauge, which does not include any parameter in each iteration, and shows better performance than the classical gradient descent method especially when the lattice size is large. Two numerical tests are carried out to show the effectiveness of the new algorithm.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2020

Hyperbolic Model Reduction for Kinetic Equations

We make a brief historical review to the moment model reduction to the kinetic equations, particularly the Grad's moment method for Boltzmann equation. The focus is on the hyperbolicity of the reduced model, which is essential to the existence of its classical solution as a Cauchy problem. The theory of the framework we developed in last years is then introduced, which may preserve the hyperbolic nature of the kinetic equations with high universality. Some lastest progress on the comparison between models with/without hyperbolicity is presented to validate the hyperbolic moment models for rarefied gases.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2020

Numerical Analysis of a High-Order Scheme for Nonlinear Fractional Differential Equations with Uniform Accuracy

We introduce a high-order numerical scheme for fractional ordinary differential equations with the Caputo derivative. The method is developed by dividing the domain into a number of subintervals, and applying the quadratic interpolation on each subinterval. The method is shown to be unconditionally stable, and for general nonlinear equations, the uniform sharp numerical order $3-ν$ can be rigorously proven for sufficiently smooth solutions at all time steps. The proof provides a general guide for proving the sharp order for higher-order schemes in the nonlinear case. Some numerical examples are given to validate our theoretical results.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

Regularized 13-Moment Equations for Inverse Power Law Models

We propose a systematic methodology to derive the regularized thirteen-moment equations in the rarefied gas dynamics for a general class of linearized collision models. Detailed expressions of the moment equations are written down for all inverse power law models as well as the hard-sphere model. By linear analysis, we show that the equations are stable near the equilibrium. The models are tested for shock structure problems to show its capability to capture the correct flow structure in strong nonequilibirum.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2019

Burnett Spectral Method for High-Speed Rarefied Gas Flows

We introduce a numerical solver for the spatially inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation using the Burnett spectral method. The modelling and discretization of the collision operator are based on the previous work [Z. Cai, Y. Fan, and Y. Wang, Burnett spectral method for the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation, arXiv:1810.07804], which is the hybridization of the BGK operator for higher moments and the quadratic collision operator for lower moments. To ensure the preservation of the equilibrium state, we introduce an additional term to the discrete collision operator, which equals zero when the number of degrees of freedom tends to infinity. Compared with the previous work [Z. Hu, Z. Cai, and Y. Wang,Numerical simulation of microflows using Hermite spectral methods, arXiv:1807.06236], the computational cost is reduced by one order. Numerical experiments such as shock structure calculation and Fourier flows are carried out to show the efficiency and accuracy of our numerical method.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2019

An efficient and accurate MPI based parallel simulator for streamer discharges in three dimensions

In this paper, we propose an efficient and accurate message-passing interface (MPI)-based parallel simulator for streamer discharges in three dimensions using the fluid model. First, we propose a new second-order semi-implicit scheme for the temporal discretization of the model that relaxes the dielectric relaxation time restriction. Moreover, it requires solving the Poisson-type equation only once at each time step, while the classical second-order explicit scheme typically needs to do twice. Second, we introduce a geometric multigrid preconditioned FGMRES solver that dramatically improves the efficiency of solving the Poisson-type equation with either constant or variable coefficients. We show numerically that no more than 4 iterations are required for the Poisson solver to converge to a relative residual of $10^{-8}$ during streamer simulations; the FGMRES solver is much faster than R&B SOR and other Krylov subspace solvers. Last but not least, all the methods are implemented using MPI. The parallel efficiency of the code and the fast algorithmic performances are demonstrated by a series of numerical experiments using up to 2560 cores on the Tianhe2-JK clusters. For applications, we study a double-headed streamer discharge as well as the interaction between two streamers, using up to 10.7 billion mesh cells.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2019

On the Holway-Weiss Debate: Convergence of the Grad-Moment-Expansion in Kinetic Gas Theory

Moment expansions are used as model reduction technique in kinetic gas theory to approximate the Boltzmann equation. Rarefied gas models based on so-called moment equations became increasingly popular recently. However, in a seminal paper by Holway [Phys. Fluids 7/6, (1965)] a fundamental restriction on the existence of the expansion was used to explain sub-shock behavior of shock profile solutions obtained by moment equations. Later, Weiss [Phys. Fluids 8/6, (1996)] argued that this restriction does not exist. We will revisit and discuss their findings and explain that both arguments have a correct and incorrect part. While a general convergence restriction for moment expansions does exist, it cannot be attributed to sub-shock solutions. We will also discuss the implications of the restriction and give some numerical evidence for our considerations.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2019

Inchworm Monte Carlo method for open quantum systems

We investigate in this work a recently proposed diagrammatic quantum Monte Carlo method --- the inchworm Monte Carlo method --- for open quantum systems. We establish its validity rigorously based on resummation of Dyson series. Moreover, we introduce an integro-differential equation formulation for open quantum systems, which illuminates the mathematical structure of the inchworm algorithm. This new formulation leads to an improvement of the inchworm algorithm by introducing classical deterministic time-integration schemes. The numerical method is validated by applications to the spin-boson model.

math-ph↗

arXiv2019

Approximation of the Boltzmann Collision Operator Based on Hermite Spectral Method

Based on the Hermite expansion of the distribution function, we introduce a Galerkin spectral method for the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation with the realistic inverse-power-law models. A practical algorithm is proposed to evaluate the coefficients in the spectral method with high accuracy, and these coefficients are also used to construct new computationally affordable collision models. Numerical experiments show that our method captures the low-order moments very efficiently.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

How does Gauge Cooling Stabilize Complex Langevin?

We study the mechanism of the gauge cooling technique to stabilize the complex Langevin method in the one-dimensional periodic setting. In this case, we find the exact solutions for the gauge transform which minimizes the Frobenius norm of link variables. Thereby, we derive the underlying stochastic differential equations by continuing the numerical method with gauge cooling, and thus provide a number of insights on the effects of gauge cooling. A specific case study is carried out for the Polyakov loop model in $SU(2)$ theory, in which we show that the gauge cooling may help form a localized distribution to guarantee there is no excursion too far away from the real axis.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

Numerical Simulation of Microflows using Hermite Spectral Methods

We propose a Hermite spectral method for the spatially inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation. For the inverse-power-law model, we generalize an approximate quadratic collision operator defined in the normalized and dimensionless setting to an operator for arbitrary distribution functions. An efficient algorithm with a fast transform is introduced to discretize this new collision operator. The method is tested for one-dimensional benchmark microflow problems.

math.SP↗

arXiv2018

Burnett Spectral Method for the Spatially Homogeneous Boltzmann Equation

We develop a spectral method for the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation using Burnett polynomials in the basis functions. Using the sparsity of the coefficients in the expansion of the collision term, the computational cost is reduced by one order of magnitude for general collision kernels and by two orders of magnitude for Maxwell molecules. The proposed method can couple seamlessly with the BGK-type modelling techniques to make future applications affordable. The implementation of the algorithm is discussed in detail, including a numerical scheme to compute all the coefficients accurately, and the design of the data structure to achieve high cache hit ratio. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our method

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2018

An entropic fourier method for the Boltzmann equation

We propose an entropic Fourier method for the numerical discretization of the Boltzmann collision operator. The method, which is obtained by modifying a Fourier Galerkin method to match the form of the discrete velocity method, can be viewed both as a discrete velocity method and as a Fourier method. As a discrete velocity method, it preserves the positivity of the solution and satisfies a discrete version of the H-theorem. As a Fourier method, it allows one to readily apply the FFT-based fast algorithms. A second-order convergence rate is validated by numerical experiments

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

On discrete Wigner transforms

In this work, we derive a discrete analog of the Wigner transform over the space $(\mathbb{C}^p)^{\otimes N}$ for any prime $p$ and any positive integer $N$. We show that the Wigner transform over this space can be constructed as the inverse Fourier transform of the standard Pauli matrices for $p=2$ or more generally of the Heisenberg-Weyl group elements for $p > 2$. We connect our work to a previous construction by Wootters of a discrete Wigner transform by showing that for all $p$, Wootters' construction corresponds to taking the inverse symplectic Fourier transform instead of the inverse Fourier transform. Finally, we discuss some implications of these results for the numerical simulation of many-body quantum spin systems.

math-ph↗