Critical behavior of the S=1/2 Heisenberg ferromagnet:: A Handscomb quantum Monte Carlo study

We investigate the critical relaxational dynamics of the S = 1/2 Heisenberg ferromagnet on a simple cubic lattice within the Handscomb prescription, on which a diagrammatic series expansion of the partition function is computed by means of a Monte Carlo procedure. Using a phenomenological renormalization-group analysis of graph quantities related to the spin susceptibility and order parameter, we obtain precise estimates of the critical exponents relations gamma/v = 1.98 +/- 0.01 and beta/nu = 0.512 +/- 0.002 and of the Curie temperature k(B)T(c)/J = 1.6778 +/- 0.0002. The critical correlation time tau(int) of both energy and susceptibility is also computed. We found the number of Monte Carlo steps needed to generate uncorrelated diagram configurations scales with the system's volume. We estimate the efficiency of the Handscomb method, comparing its ability in dealing with the critical slowing down to that of other quantum and classical Monte Carlo prescriptions.