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arXiv:1307.4982 · Physical Review B

Efficient variational approach to the impurity problem and its application to the dynamical mean-field theory

Chungwei Lin, Alexander A. Demkov

Published Jul 18, 2013• 38 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Within the framework of exact diagonalization (ED), we compute the ground state of Anderson impurity problem using the variational approach based on the configuration interaction (CI) expansion. We demonstrate that an accurate ground state can be obtained by iteratively diagonalizing a matrix with the dimension that is less than 10$%$ of the full Hamiltonian. The efficiency of the CI expansion for different problems is analyzed. By way of example, we apply this method to the single-site dynamical mean-field theory using ED as the impurity solver. Specifically, to demonstrate the usefulness of this approach, we solve the attractive Hubbard model in the grand-canonical ensemble, where the $s$-wave superconducting solution is explicitly obtained.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.88.035123

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Within the framework of exact diagonalization (ED), we compute the ground state of Anderson impurity problem using the variational approach based on the configuration interaction (CI) expansion. We demonstrate that an accurate ground state can be obtained by iteratively diagonalizing a matrix with the dimension that is less than 10% of the full Hamiltonian. The efficiency of the CI expansion for different problems is analyzed. By way of example, we apply this method to the single-site dynamical mean-field theory using ED as the impurity solver. Specifically, to demonstrate the usefulness of this approach, we solve the attractive Hubbard model in the grand-canonical ensemble, where the sss-wave superconducting solution is explicitly obtained.
The development of polynomial cost solvers for correlated quantum impurity models, with controllable errors, is a central challenge in quantum many-body physics, where these models find applications ranging from nanoscience to the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). Here, we describe how configuration interaction (CI) approximations to exact diagonalization (ED) may be used as solvers in DMFT. CI approximations retain the main advantages of ED, such as the ability to treat general interactions and off-diagonal hybridizations and to obtain real spectral information, but are of polynomial cost. Furthermore, their errors can be controlled by monitoring the convergence of physical quantities as a function of the CI hierarchy. Using benchmark DMFT applications, such as single-site DMFT of the one-dimensional Hubbard model and $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}2$ cluster DMFT of the two-dimensional Hubbard model, we show that CI approximations allow us to obtain near-exact ED results for a tiny fraction of the cost. This is true over the entire range of interaction strengths including ``difficult'' regimes, such as in the pseudogap phase of the two-dimensional Hubbard model. We use the ability of CI approximations to treat large numbers of orbitals to demonstrate convergence of the bath representation in the $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}2$ cluster DMFT using a 24-bath orbital representation. CI approximations thus form a promising route to extend ED to problems that are currently difficult to study using other solvers such as continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo, including impurity models with large numbers of orbitals and general interactions.
We describe a variational approach to solving Anderson impurity models by means of exact diagonalization. Optimized parameters of a discretized auxiliary model are obtained on the basis of the Peierls-Feynman-Bogoliubov principle. Thereby, the variational approach resolves ambiguities related to the bath discretization, which is generally necessary to make Anderson impurity models tractable by exact diagonalization. The choice of variational degrees of freedom made here allows systematic improvements of total energies over mean-field decouplings like Hartree-Fock. Furthermore, our approach allows us to embed arbitrary bath discretization schemes in total-energy calculations and to systematically optimize and improve on traditional routes to the discretization problem such as fitting of hybridization functions on Matsubara frequencies. Benchmarks in terms of a single orbital Anderson model demonstrate that the variational exact diagonalization method accurately reproduces free energies as well as several single- and two-particle observables obtained from an exact solution. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of the variational exact diagonalization approach to realistic five-orbital problems with the example system of Co impurities in bulk Cu and compare it to continuous-time Monte Carlo calculations. The accuracy of established bath discretization schemes is assessed in the framework of the variational approach introduced here.
We here present how a self-consistent solution of the dynamical mean field theory equations can be obtained using exact diagonalization of an Anderson impurity model with accuracies comparable to those found using renormalization group or quantum Monte Carlo methods. We show how one can solve a correlated quantum impurity coupled to several hundred uncorrelated bath sites, using a restricted active basis set. The number of bath sites determines the resolution of the obtained spectral function, which consists of peaks roughly spaced by the band width divided by the number of bath sites. The self-consistency cycles are fully performed on the real frequency axis and expressed as numerical stable matrix operations. The same impurity solver has been used on Ligand Field and finite size cluster calculations and is capable of treating involved Hamiltonians including the full rotational invariant Coulomb interaction, spin-orbit coupling and low symmetry crystal-fields. The proposed method allows for the calculation of a variety of correlation functions at little extra cost.
We present a methodology to solve the Anderson impurity model in the context of dynamical mean field theory based on the exact-diagonalization method. We propose a strategy to effectively refine the exact-diagonalization solver by combining a finite-temperature Lanczos algorithm with an adapted version of the cluster perturbation theory. We show that the augmented diagonalization yields an improved accuracy in the description of the spectral function of the single-band Hubbard model and is a reliable approach for a full ddd-orbital manifold calculation.
Quantum embedding methods, such as dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), provide a powerful framework for investigating strongly correlated materials. A central computational bottleneck in DMFT is in solving the Anderson impurity model (AIM), whose exact solution is classically intractable for large bath sizes. In this work, we develop and benchmark a quantum-classical hybrid solver tailored for DMFT applications, using the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) to prepare the ground state of the AIM with shallow quantum circuits. The solver uses a unified ansatz framework to prepare the particle and hole excitations of the ground-state from parameter-shifted circuits, enabling the reconstruction of the impurity Green's function through a continued-fraction expansion. We evaluate the performance of this approach across a few bath sizes and interaction strengths under noisy, shot-limited conditions. We compare three optimization routines (COBYLA, Adam, and L-BFGS-B) in terms of convergence and fidelity, assess the benefits of estimating a quantum-computed moment (QCM) correction to the variational energies, and benchmark the approach by comparing the reconstructed density of states (DOS) against that obtained using a classical pipeline. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of Green's function reconstruction on near-term devices and establish practical benchmarks for quantum impurity solvers embedded within self-consistent DMFT loops.
We derive an exact mapping from the action of nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) to a single-impurity Anderson model (SIAM) with time-dependent parameters, which can be solved numerically by exact diagonalization. The representability of the nonequilibrium DMFT action by a SIAM is established as a rather general property of nonequilibrium Green functions. We also obtain the nonequilibrium DMFT equations using the cavity method alone. We show how to numerically obtain the SIAM parameters using Cholesky or eigenvector matrix decompositions. As an application, we use a Krylov-based time propagation method to investigate the Hubbard model in which the hopping is switched on, starting from the atomic limit. Possible future developments are discussed.