Abstract
The many-body Schrödinger equation for the vibrational states of H2CO and several of its isotopomers is solved by the diffusion quantum Monte Carlo algorithm. We report exact simulations for the energies and selected properties of the ground state and the out-of-plane vibrations, and simulations for other states using approximate nodal schemes. An importance sampling scheme based on a modular construction of guiding functions is used to reduce statistical noise.