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arXiv:1503.00933 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Explicit inclusion of electronic correlation effects in molecular dynamics

J. P. Julien, Joel D. Kress, Jian‐Xin Zhu

Published Jul 7, 2017• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We design a quantum molecular dynamics method for strongly correlated electron metals. The strong electronic correlation effects are treated within a real-space version of the Gutzwiller variational approximation (GA), which is suitable for the inhomogeneity inherent in the process of quantum molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We also propose an efficient algorithm based on the second-moment approximation to the electronic density of states for the search of the optimal variation parameters, from which the renormalized interatomic MD potentials are fully determined. By considering a minimal one-correlated-orbital Anderson model with parameterized spatial dependence of tight-binding hopping integrals, this fast GA-MD method is benchmarked with that using exact diagonalization to solve the GA variational parameters. The efficiency and accuracy are illustrated. We have demonstrated the effect of temperature coupled with electronic correlation on structural properties simulated with MD. This method will open up an unprecedented opportunity enabling large-scale quantum MD simulations of strongly correlated electronic materials.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.96.035111

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Physical review. B, Condensed matter•Nov 1, 1991•6 citations
We design a quantum molecular dynamics method for strongly correlated electron metals. The strong electronic correlation effects are treated within a real-space version of the Gutzwiller variational approximation (GA), which is suitable for the inhomogeneity inherent in the process of quantum molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We also propose an efficient algorithm based on the second-moment approximation to the electronic density of states for the search of the optimal variation parameters, from which the renormalized interatomic MD potentials are fully determined. By considering a minimal one-correlated-orbital Anderson model with parameterized spatial dependence of tight-binding hopping integrals, this fast GA-MD method is benchmarked with that using exact diagonalization to solve the GA variational parameters. The efficiency and accuracy are illustrated. We have demonstrated the effect of temperature coupled with electronic correlation on structural properties simulated with MD. This method will open up an unprecedented opportunity enabling large-scale quantum MD simulations of strongly correlated electronic materials.
We use machine learning to enable large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) of a correlated electron model under the Gutzwiller approximation scheme. This model exhibits a Mott transition as a function of on-site Coulomb repulsion UUU. The repeated solution of the Gutzwiller self-consistency equations would be prohibitively expensive for large-scale MD simulations. We show that machine learning models of the Gutzwiller potential energy can be remarkably accurate. The models, which are trained with N=33N=33N=33 atoms, enable highly accurate MD simulations at much larger scales ($N\ensuremath{\gtrsim}{10}^{3}$). We investigate the physics of the smooth Mott crossover in the fluid phase.
We present a formulation of quantum molecular dynamics that includes electron correlation effects via the Gutzwiller method. Our new scheme enables the study of the dynamical behavior of atoms and molecules with strong electron interactions. The Gutzwiller approach goes beyond the conventional mean-field treatment of the intra-atomic electron repulsion and captures crucial correlation effects such as band narrowing and electron localization. We use Gutzwiller quantum molecular dynamics to investigate the Mott transition in the liquid phase of a single-band metal and uncover intriguing structural and transport properties of the atoms.
Nanostructures with open shell transition metal or molecular constituents host often strong electronic correlations and are highly sensitive to atomistic material details. This tutorial review discusses method developments and applications of theoretical approaches for the realistic description of the electronic and magnetic properties of nanostructures with correlated electrons. First, the implementation of a flexible interface between density functional theory and a variant of dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) highly suitable for the simulation of complex correlated structures is explained and illustrated. On the DMFT side, this interface is largely based on recent developments of quantum Monte Carlo and exact diagonalization techniques allowing for efficient descriptions of general four fermion Coulomb interactions, reduced symmetries and spin-orbit coupling, which are explained here. With the examples of the Cr (001) surfaces, magnetic adatoms, and molecular systems it is shown how the interplay of Hubbard U and Hund’s J determines charge and spin fluctuations and how these interactions drive different sorts of correlation effects in nanosystems. Non-local interactions and correlations present a particular challenge for the theory of low dimensional systems. We present our method developments addressing these two challenges, i.e., advancements of the dynamical vertex approximation and a combination of the constrained random phase approximation with continuum medium theories. We demonstrate how non-local interaction and correlation phenomena are controlled not only by dimensionality but also by coupling to the environment which is typically important for determining the physics of nanosystems.
Strong electronic correlations are at the heart of many interesting phenomena. For the theoretical description of these materials, a proper treatment of the local atomic physics is required. We propose a novel approach combining functionals of the electron density and functionals of the one-particle reduced density matrix to improve this description. The proposed method has a solid foundation in reduced density-matrix functional theory and no double-counting problem arises. It employs a decomposition of the electron-electron interaction in real space. The interaction close to the correlated orbitals, for example, the partially filled 3d-orbitals of transition-metal ions, is described with a density-matrix functional and otherwise with a local or semi-local density functional. We propose to evaluate the density-matrix functional from Levy’s constrained search problem, i.e., via a constrained minimization over an ensemble of many-particle wave functions. In contrast to approximate parametrized density-matrix functionals, this evaluation allows us to systematically improve the functional towards the exact result. In situations where the one-particle basis is too large to evaluate the density-matrix functional from Levy’s constrained minimization problem, we apply a series of approximations that each can be converged to the exact result: the first approximation step is the local approximation of the density-matrix functional proposed by Blöchl, Walther and Pruschke. For the density-matrix functionals within the local interactions, we propose the adaptive cluster approximation (ACA) that systematically truncates non-interacting one-particle states and drastically reduces the computational effort. The resulting density-matrix functional for a local interaction and a small number of non-interacting one-particle states is then evaluated with the constrained minimization problem. We explore different parametrizations of many-particle wave functions in this constrained minimization problem. A parametrization based on a configuration-interaction-like ansatz is shown to converge rapidly if suitable selection criterion for the Slater determinants is chosen. An impurity-bath-separation ansatz is shown to be suitable for single-impurity Anderson models. It is shown that the constrained minimization can be solved for matrix product states with a DMRG-like iterative minimization. Furthermore, we show that Gutzwiller-Jastrow-correlated wave functions can be used with a quantum Monte Carlo procedure as many-particle wave functions. Finally, we formulate an algorithm for the evaluation of the density-matrix functional on near-term quantum computers. Results from the execution of the algorithm on an existing quantum computer with transmon qubits are presented. The proposed approach combining density functionals and density-matrix functionals is implemented in the CP-PAW code based on the projector augmented-wave formalism. We present results for the dissociation curve of the hydrogen molecule as the prototypical case of strong static correlation and show that static correlation is well described with the new approach. We show results for the nonmagnetic state of the transition-metaoxide NiO that is described qualitatively wrong with the DFT+U method. The proposed method properly describes the nonmagnetic state of NiO as an insulator and predicts a qualitatively correct spectral function.
Recent developments in methods and computational power render it possible to realistically simulate nanoscopic systems such as surfaces, two-dimensional materials, and nanodots including strong electronic correlations. Nanoscopic structuring enables the tailoring of the electronic structure which can be the basis of future electronic devices. This thesis addresses method developments and applications at the interface of ab-initio methods and model based many-body methods for the case of nanoscopically structured systems with strong correlations. In contrast to bulk materials, low-dimensional materials exhibit long-range interactions due to reduced screening. In this work, the general question how these long-range interactions affect electronic properties is investigated. To this end, a variational approach which approximates models with long-range interactions by models with only local interactions is introduced. For the case of an ab-initio derived model of graphene it is found that nonlocal interactions stabilize the semimetallic phase. The quality of this approach is discussed using a simple test case. Realistic models of interacting impurities embedded in an extended solid involve a large amount of bath sites and low symmetries regarding the impurity, which renders an exact treatment impossible. A variational algorithm is presented which optimizes corresponding exactly solvable effective models. Thus, the method is a proposition to an unambiguous solution of the so-called bath-discretization problem in exact diagonalization approaches to the Anderson impurity model. The method is benchmarked for a simple test case and applied to realistic models of Co atoms in Cu hosts and Fe atoms on alkali surfaces. Finally, the (001) surface of Cr is investigated by incorporating local correlation effects into a material realistic description derived from density functional theory. To this end, the LDA DMFT method is used to calculate spectral functions, which are compared to spectroscopic experimental data. So far open experimental features are thereby clarified. Cr(001) exemplifies a situation where correlation effects are determined by the geometric structure of a material: While correlations effects are weak in bulk Cr, they are key for the electronic structure of the Cr(001) surface.
The electronic ground states for two- and three-dimensional Anderson-lattice clusters with large Hubbard repulsion are determined variationally within the Gutzwiller ansatz by use of a stochastic algorithm for exact evaluation of matrix elements of Gutzwiller states. The algorithm is similar to one normally used for finite-temperature simulation and is described in some detail. Variational states for a variety of Hamiltonian parameters and particle densities were considered. Of particular interest is the regime of small interband hopping, which is antiferromagnetic at densities near two particles per unit cell. We found that for some Hamiltonian-parameter regimes, doping the antiferromagnetic cluster with enough particles or holes can destroy the magnetic ordering and produce a state that resembles a heavy-Fermi-liquid state, a metal with a strongly-frequency-dependent self-energy. For a 4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}4 Anderson lattice, we present results of low-temperature quantum Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the validity of the variational Gutzwiller ansatz.