AleaHOWTO

ALEA Library

The Alea library allows to

• do Monte Carlo measurements
• calculate errors and autocorrelation times with binning analysis (Jackknife analysis)
• calculate mean values and errors of functions of measurements

Monte Carlo measurements

We include the ALEA library in a C++ code with

#include <alps/alea.h>

First we have to create an observable

alps::RealObservable obs_a("observable a");

where the argument in the constructor stands for the name of the observable. Measurements can easily added to the observable by using the “«” operator. For example

obs_a << 1.2;

adds the number 1.2 to the observable obs_a.

Every Monte Carlo simulation needs thermalization. After a certain number of thermalization steps the observable has to be reset by

obs_a.reset(true);

Printing an observable is simply done by

std::cout << obs_a;

Here is a complete example program:

#include <iostream>
#include <alps/alea.h>
#include <boost/random.hpp> 

int main()
{
    //DEFINE RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR
    typedef boost::minstd_rand0 random_base_type;
    typedef boost::uniform_01<random_base_type> random_type;
    random_base_type random_int;
    random_type random(random_int);

    //DEFINE OBSERVABLE
    alps::RealObservable obs_a("observable a");

    //ADD 1000 MEASUREMENTS TO THE OBSERVABLE
    for(int i = 0; i < 1000; ++i){ 
        obs_a << random();
    }

    //RESET OBSERVABLES (THERMALIZATION FINISHED)
    obs_a.reset(true);

    //ADD 10000 MEASUREMENTS TO THE OBSERVABLE
    for(int i = 0; i < 10000; ++i){
        obs_a << random();
    }

    //OUTPUT OBSERVABLE
    std::cout << obs_a;       
}

Functions of Obervables

It is possible to evaluate functions of observables. We first have to create observable evaluators from the observables containing the measurements. For example, assume we have added measurements to obs_a and obs_b and we want to calculate obs_c = obs_a/obs_b. This can be done by

alps::RealObsevaluator obseval_a(obs_a);
alps::RealObsevaluator obseval_b(obs_b);
alps::RealObsevaluator obseval_c;
obseval_c = obseval_b / obseval_a;
std::cout << obseval_c;

Simple example programs can also be found in the ALPS source directory in “test/alea”.