Instantons and Monte Carlo Methods in Quantum Mechanics

In these lectures we describe the use of Monte Carlo simulations in understanding the role of tunneling events, instantons, in a quantum mechanical toy model. We study, in particular, a variety of methods that have been used in the QCD context, such as Monte Carlo simulations of the partition function, cooling and heating, the random and interacting instanton liquid model, and numerical simulations of non-Gaussian corrections to the semi-classical approximation.