Diagrammatic quantum Monte Carlo study of the Fröhlich polaron

Abstract

A detailed study of the Fr\"ohlich polaron model is performed on the basis of diagrammatic quantum Monte Carlo method [N. V. Prokof'ev and B. V. Svistunov, Phys. Rev. Lett. $81,$ 2514 (1998)]. The method is further developed both quantitatively (performance) and qualitatively (new estimators), and is enhanced by spectral analysis of the polaron Green's function, within an approach developed in the present paper. We present up to date results for the binding energy, and make available precise data for the effective mass, including the region of intermediate and strong couplings. We look at the structure of the polaron cloud and answer such questions as the average number of phonons in the cloud and their number/momentum distribution. The spectral analysis reveals nontrivial structure of the spectral density at intermediate and large coupling: the spectral continuum features pronounced peaks that we attribute to unstable excited states of the polaron.