Study of the triangular-lattice Hubbard model with constrained-path quantum Monte Carlo

We benchmark constrained-path Monte Carlo (CPMC) on the triangular-lattice Hubbard model for several fillings and U values and show that symmetry-adapted trial wave functions are essential for quantitative accuracy. Away from half-filling, simple free-electron-based trials that preserve the ground state symmetry yield energy deviations lesssim 1\% from exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group results. At half-filling, strong frustration in the intermediate to large U regimes necessitates symmetry-projected trials to reach comparable accuracy, where both free-electron and symmetry-broken Hartree-Fock trials incur substantial constraint bias. Since the computational cost of CPMC with symmetry projection scales polynomially with system size, our results motivate its use as a practical route for studying competing ground states in strongly correlated, frustrated systems.