In Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) the interacting electron problem is mapped into a noninteracting problem in an effective potential v(KS). It is known that the charge gap of the interacting system is different from the gap of the effective problem due to a jump Δxc in v(KS) when an electron is added but its magnitude and its role in the ubiquitous discrepancy between the experimental gaps and approximate DFT computations is poorly understood. Here we compute the exact v(KS) of a strongly interacting one-dimensional lattice model which can be driven from an ionic to a Mott insulating state. Presence of a "vacuum" region allows to determine the absolute value of v(KS). We show that in the ionic regime Δxc is determined by nearest-neighbor interaction, while in the Mott regime Δxc is determined by on-site Hubbard interaction.
In Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) the interacting electron problem is mapped into a noninteracting problem in an effective potential v(KS). It is known that the charge gap of the interacting system is different from the gap of the effective problem due to a jump Δxc in v(KS) when an electron is added but its magnitude and its role in the ubiquitous discrepancy between the experimental gaps and approximate DFT computations is poorly understood. Here we compute the exact v(KS) of a strongly interacting one-dimensional lattice model which can be driven from an ionic to a Mott insulating state. Presence of a "vacuum" region allows to determine the absolute value of v(KS). We show that in the ionic regime Δxc is determined by nearest-neighbor interaction, while in the Mott regime Δxc is determined by on-site Hubbard interaction.
The physics of interacting many-body systems is a very complex and challenging subject. Therefore one in general needs to use simplified models and approximate methods for studying these systems theoretically. In this work we study the exchange-correlation (xc) potential for the Hubbard-Holstein (HH) model for the application of Density Functional Theory (DFT) to the same. The Hohenberg-Kohn theorem and the two sets of Kohn-Sham equations are derived for the HH-model extending a procedure outlined in previous work. The xc-potentials for the fermions and bosons respectively are then derived analytically as functions of the density n and phononic displacement x for a single HH-site in contact with a heat bath, generalizing the procedure for the pure Hubbard model. The potential for the HH-site is found to have a smaller gap at half filling than for the Hubbard model, due to a rescaling of the effective electron-electron interaction. It also has an additional term linear in (n−1). The xc-potentials are used to study two simple systems, an Andersson impurity dimer and a four-site chain of HH-sites. The results are compared to those of an exact solution and to the Hartree-Fock (HF) solution. For the dimer the DFT-method performs consistently better than the HF-method, while the results for the chain are more ambiguous. However, the central result of this thesis is to produce xc-potentials for an infinitely coordinated Bethe lattice, using Dynamical Mean Field Theory (DMFT). The potentials for a small but representative set of interaction parameters are presented and compared to the analytical potential. The potentials are similar in that they do not exhibit much structure, and they behave very similarly far from half filling. Close to half filling they show more differences, as the analytic potential is always discontinuous around half filling while the potential attained via DMFT is only discontinuous for large electron-electron interactions.
Aiming to combine density functional theory (DFT) and wave-function theory, we study a mapping from the many-body interacting system to an effectively interacting Kohn-Sham system instead of a noninteracting Kohn-Sham system. Because a ground state of effectively interacting systems requires having a solution for the correlated many-body wave functions, this provides a natural framework to many-body wave-function theories such as the configuration interaction and the coupled-cluster method in the formal theoretical framework of DFT. Employing simple one-dimensional two-electron systems---namely, the one-dimensional helium atom, the hydrogen molecule, and the heteronuclear diatomic molecule---we investigate properties of many-body wave functions and exact exchange-correlation potentials of effectively interacting Kohn-Sham systems. As a result, we find that the asymptotic behavior of the exact exchange-correlation potential can be controlled by optimizing that of the effective interaction. Furthermore, the typical features of the exact noninteracting Kohn-Sham system, namely, a spiky feature and a step feature in the exchange-correlation potential for the molecular dissociation limit, can be suppressed by a proper choice of the effective interaction. These findings open a possibility to construct numerically robust and efficient exchange-correlation potentials and functionals based on the effectively interacting Kohn-Sham scheme.
Inspired by earlier work on the band-gap problem in insulators, we reexamine the treatment of strongly correlated Hubbard-type models within density-functional theory. In contrast to previous studies, the density is fully parametrized by occupation numbers and overlap of orbitals centered at neighboring atomic sites, as is the local potential by the hopping matrix. This corresponds to a good formal agreement between density-functional theory in real space and second quantization. It is shown that density-functional theory is formally applicable to such systems and the theoretical framework is provided. The question of noninteracting v representability is studied numerically for finite one-dimnsional clusters, for which exact results are available, and qualitatively for infinite systems. This leads to the conclusion that the electron density corresponding to interacting systems of the type studied here is in fact not noninteracting v representable because the Kohn-Sham electrons are unable to reproduce the correlation-induced localization correctly.
We formulate a set of equations that facilitate an exact numerical solution of the Kohn-Sham potential for a finite Hubbard chain with nearest neighbour hopping and arbitrary site potentials. The approach relies on a mapping of the non-interacting Kohn-Sham ground state wave function onto the exact interacting system wavefunction and two interconnected self-consistent cycles. The self-consistent cycles are performed within the framework of the Kohn-Sham non-interacting system without any direct reference to the interacting system. The first self-consistent cycle updates the mapping of the non-interacting wavefunction onto the interacting wavefunction based on a trial input density, while the second self-consistent cycle updates the Kohn-Sham potential to yield the trial density. At the solution point, the exact density, the exact Kohn-Sham potential, the density functional correlation energy and the exact interacting system ground state energy are available.
This review explains the relationship between density functional theory and strongly correlated models using the simplest possible example, the two-site Hubbard model. The relationship to traditional quantum chemistry is included. Even in this elementary example, where the exact ground-state energy and site occupations can be found analytically, there is much to be explained in terms of the underlying logic and aims of density functional theory. Although the usual solution is analytic, the density functional is given only implicitly. We overcome this difficulty using the Levy-Lieb construction to create a parametrization of the exact function with negligible errors. The symmetric case is most commonly studied, but we find a rich variation in behavior by including asymmetry, as strong correlation physics vies with charge-transfer effects. We explore the behavior of the gap and the many-body Green's function, demonstrating the 'failure' of the Kohn-Sham (KS) method to reproduce the fundamental gap. We perform benchmark calculations of the occupation and components of the KS potentials, the correlation kinetic energies, and the adiabatic connection. We test several approximate functionals (restricted and unrestricted Hartree-Fock and Bethe ansatz local density approximation) to show their successes and limitations. We also discuss and illustrate the concept of the derivative discontinuity. Useful appendices include analytic expressions for density functional energy components, several limits of the exact functional (weak- and strong-coupling, symmetric and asymmetric), various adiabatic connection results, proofs of exact conditions for this model, and the origin of the Hubbard model from a minimal basis model for stretched H2.
We investigate the effects of Coulomb disorder on the half-filled ionic Hubbard model within the framework of dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), using the equation-of-motion method as the impurity solver, combined with typical medium theory (TMT). In contrast to conventional disordered Hubbard models, the ionic Hubbard model contains a staggered ionic potential that introduces additional competition between band-insulating and correlation-driven insulating tendencies. We analyze how this ionic potential modifies the electronic phases induced by Coulomb disorder through the arithmetic and geometric averages of the local density of states. In the absence of disorder, the system exhibits metallic (M), Mott-insulating (MI), and band-insulating (BI) phases. When Coulomb disorder is introduced, Anderson-insulating (AI) behavior and localized states (LS) inside the Mott gap are also observed. In particular, the LS regime appears between the metallic and Mott-insulating phases at small ionic potentials, whereas the AI regime develops for sufficiently large values of the Coulomb interaction and ionic potential. Our results show that the interplay between ionic potential, electron correlation, and disorder substantially influences the localization behavior and insulating characteristics of the ionic Hubbard model.