Dortmund 2006 – scientific programme

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T: Teilchenphysik

T 505: QFT II

T 505.3: Group Report

Thursday, March 30, 2006, 17:00–17:20, C2-02-176

Worldline numerics — •Klaus Klingmüller and Holger Gies — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Philosophenweg 16, 69120 Heidelberg

We present a numerical method to evaluate functional determinants, as they occur in the computation of the effective action in gaussian approximation with non-perturbative coupling to background fields. With the string-inspired worldline formalism, the problem is mapped onto the path integral of a point particle, which can be evaluated with Monte Carlo techniques. This approach resolves the general problem of finding and summing over the fluctuation spectrum by computing the determinant within a single computational step. No particular symmetries of the background field are required. As an example we consider the calculation of Casimir energies and present recent results for Casimir configurations which have been inaccessible by other methods so far.