  Monte Carlo techniques have played an important role in understanding
strongly-correlated systems across many areas of physics, covering a wide range
of energy and length scales. Among the many Monte Carlo methods applicable to
quantum mechanical systems, the path integral Monte Carlo approach with its
variants has been employed widely. Since semi-classical or classical approaches
will not be discussed in this review, path integral based approaches can for
our purposes be divided into two categories: approaches applicable to quantum
mechanical systems at zero temperature and approaches applicable to quantum
mechanical systems at finite temperature. While these two approaches are
related to each other, the underlying formulation and aspects of the algorithm
differ. This paper reviews the path integral Monte Carlo ground state (PIGS)
approach, which solves the time-independent Schroedinger equation.
Specifically, the PIGS approach allows for the determination of expectation
values with respect to eigen states of the few- or many-body Schroedinger
equation provided the system Hamiltonian is known. The theoretical framework
behind the PIGS algorithm, implementation details, and sample applications for
sermonic systems are presented.
