Analysis and Development of Stochastic Multigrid Methods in Lattice Field Theory

We study the relation between the dynamical critical behavior and the kinematics of stochastic multigrid algorithms. The scale dependence of acceptance rates for nonlocal Metropolis updates is analyzed with the help of an approximation formula. A quantitative study of the kinematics of multigrid algorithms in several interacting models is performed. We find that for a critical model with Hamiltonian H(phi) absence of critical slowing down can only be expected if the expansion of <H(phi+psi)> in terms of the shift psi contains no relevant term (mass term). The predictions of this rule are verified in a multigrid Monte Carlo simulation of the Sine Gordon model in two dimensions. Our analysis can serve as a guideline for the development of new algorithms: We propose a new multigrid method for nonabelian lattice gauge theory, the time slice blocking. For SU(2) gauge fields in two dimensions, critical slowing down is almost completely eliminated by this method, in accordance with the theoretical prediction. The generalization of the time slice blocking to SU(2) in four dimensions is investigated analytically and by numerical simulations. Compared to two dimensions, the local disorder in the four dimensional gauge field leads to kinematical problems.