Extending the Broad Histogram Method for Continuous Systems

Abstract

We propose a way of extending the Broad Histogram Monte Carlo method (BHMC) to systems with continuous degrees of freedom, and we apply these ideas to investigate the three-dimensional XY-model. Our method gives results in excellent agreement with Metropolis and Histogram Monte Carlo simulations and calculates for the whole temperature range 1.2<T<4.7 using only 2 times more computer effort than the Histogram method for the range 2.1<T<2.2. Our way of treatment is general, it can also be applied to other systems with continuous degrees of freedom.