Tethered Monte Carlo: Computing the effective potential without critical slowing down

We present Tethered Monte Carlo, a simple, general purpose method of computing the effective potential of the order parameter (Helmholtz free energy). This formalism is based on a new statistical ensemble, closely related to the micromagnetic one, but with an extended configuration space (through Creutz-like demons). Canonical averages for arbitrary values of the external magnetic field are computed without additional simulations. The method is put to work in the two-dimensional Ising model, where the existence of exact results enables us to perform high precision checks. A rather peculiar feature of our implementation, which employs a local Metropolis algorithm. is the total absence. within errors, of critical slowing down for magnetic observables. Indeed, high accuracy results are presented for lattices as large as L = 1024. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All fights reserved.