We present a rigorous framework which combines single-particle Green's function theory with density functional theory based on a separation of electron-electron interactions into short- and long-range components. Short-range contribution to the total energy and exchange-correlation potential is provided by a density functional approximation, while the long-range contribution is calculated using an explicit many-body Green's function method. Such a hybrid results in a nonlocal, dynamic, and orbital-dependent exchange-correlation functional of a single-particle Green's function. In particular, we present a range-separated hybrid functional called srSVWN5-lrGF2 which combines the local-density approximation and the second-order Green's function theory. We illustrate that similarly to density functional approximations, the new functional is weakly basis-set dependent. Furthermore, it offers an improved description of the short-range dynamic correlation. The many-body contribution to the functional mitigates the many-electron self-interaction error present in many density functional approximations and provides a better description of molecular properties. Additionally, we illustrate that the new functional can be used to scale down the self-energy and, therefore, introduce an additional sparsity to the self-energy matrix that in the future can be exploited in calculations for large molecules or periodic systems.
In many cases, density-functional theory (DFT) with current standard approximate functionals offers a relatively accurate and computationally cheap description of the short-range dynamic electron correlation effects. However, in general, standard DFT does not treat the dispersion interaction effects adequately which, on the other hand, can be described by many-body perturbation theory (MBPT). It is therefore of interest to develop a hybrid model which combines the best of both the MBPT and DFT approaches. This can be achieved by splitting the two-electron interaction into long-range and short-range parts; the long-range part is then treated by MBPT and the short-range part by DFT. This work deals with the formulation of a general MBPT-DFT model (i.e., valid for any type of zeroth-order Hamiltonian) based on such a range separation. Applying the Rayleigh-Schr\"odinger formalism in this context, one finds that the generalized Bloch equation becomes self-consistent at each order of perturbation. This complication arises because the short-range part of the energy is a functional of the exact electron density, which is expanded in a perturbation series. In order to address this ``self-consistency problem'' and provide computable orbital-based expressions for any order of perturbation, a general one-electron reduced-density-matrix-based formalism is proposed. Two applications of our general formalism are presented: The derivation of a hybrid second-order M\o{}ller-Plesset-DFT model and the formulation of a range-separated optimized effective potential method based on a hybrid G\"orling-Levy-type MBPT-DFT model.
Using Green's-function many-body theory, we present the details of a formally exact adiabatic-connection fluctuation-dissipation density-functional theory based on range separation, which was sketched in Toulouse et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 096404 (2009)]. Range-separated density-functional theory approaches combining short-range density-functional approximations with long-range random-phase approximations (RPAs) are then obtained as well-identified approximations on the long-range Green's-function self-energy. Range-separated RPA-type schemes with or without long-range Hartree-Fock exchange response kernel are assessed on rare-gas and alkaline-earth-metal dimers and compared to range-separated second-order perturbation theory and range-separated coupled-cluster theory.
In this paper, we propose a generic and systematic approach for study of the electronic structure for atoms or molecules. In particular, we address the issue of single particle states, or orbitals, which should be one of the most important aspects of a quantum many-body theory. We argue that the single-particle
Green function provides a most general scheme for generating these single particle states or orbitals. We call them the
correlated atomic or molecular orbitals to make a distinction from those determined from
Hartree−Fock equation. We present the calculation of the single particle properties (i.e., the electron affinities
(EA′s) and ionization potentials
(IP′s)) for the
H2O molecule using the correlated molecular orbitals in the context of quantum chemistry with a second-order self energy. We also calculate the total ground state energy with a single
Slater wavefunction determined only from the hole states. Comparisons are made with available experimental data as well as with those from the
Hartree−Fock or density functional theory
(DFT) calculations. We conclude that the correlated atomic or molecular orbital approach provides a strictest and most powerful method for studying the single-particle properties of atoms or molecules. It also gives a better total energy than do the
Hartree−Fock and
DFT even at the single
Slater determinant level. It promises that a correlation theory based on the correlated atomic or molecular orbitals will become an approach which possesses the advantages and also overcomes their shortcomings of current quantum chemistry methods based on either the conventional quantum many-body theory or the
DFT.
A new approach for the calculation of ground states of many-electron systems is proposed via an integral formulation of the Hohenberg-Kohn-Sham density-functional theory. Only equations for the total electron density are involved; orbitals are not employed. Exchange and correlation effects are incorporated. In place of the set of single-electron equations, the total electron density is explicitly expressed in terms of the Kohn-Sham effective local potential through multidimensional integrations. The development is based on the first-order density matrix as obtained from the one-body Green's function in polygonal and Fourier path-integral representations. This might open up the possibility of ab initio calculations for molecules with very many electrons. It also provides explicit solutions to two long-standing problems: electron kinetic energy and momentum density as functionals of the total electron density. The formulation can also be used in calculations for general fermions.
The problem of quantum dynamics in open systems has gained attention in recent decades and not the least due to the advances made in quantum transport in molecular systems. The main motivation behind quantum transport and molecular electronics is the futuristic goal to be able at some point to replace, or to complement, the silicon-based technology and to make the electronic devices faster. On a fundamental level, one has to deal with time-dependent processes where electron-electron or electron- phonon interactions are of great importance, and they can cause profound quantitative and qualitative changes on the physical and dynamical properties of electronic systems compared to the non-interacting case. Most of the studies of quantum transport have been focused on the steady-state description while neglecting the short-time dynamics. However, the dynamical effects are of great importance since fast- switching processes play a pivotal role in the operation of future devices. We studied the problem of time-dependent electron transport through the Anderson impurity model by using many-body perturbation theory (MBPT) together with Keldysh Green’s functions as well as with time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). These methods were compared with numerically exact time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group (tDMRG) method. We found that the many-body perturbation theory results beyond Hartree-Fock approximation were in close agreement with tDMRG results. In addition we studied the possibility of multistablity in the density and current of an interacting nanoscale junction as well as how to reversibly switch between the multiple solutions in time domain. An accurate theoretical treatment of electron correlation even in as simple model as an interacting electron gas at metallic densities still continues to be a challenge; especially description of features in the photoemission spectra due to electron correlations provides a theoretical challenge. The many-body perturbation theory yields a systematic way to study electron-electron (electron-phonon) correlations in various systems. One of the widely used approximations in MBPT is the GW approximation in which the bare interaction line is replaced with screened interaction line in the first order exchange diagram. The GW approximation gives good estimates for the band gap values close to experimental ones but especially the self-consistent GW approximation has a number of deficiencies like washing out of plasmon features and overestimation of bandwidths compared to experiment. One way to improve GW calculations is to include vertex corrections. Unfortunately, the straightforward inclusion of vertex corrections yields negative spectra in some frequency regions. We developed a diagrammatic approach to construct self-energy approximations with positive spectral properties. Our approach consists of expressing a self-energy of response diagram as a product of half-diagrams after which a minimal set of additional diagrams is identified to construct a perfect square. We applied this method to study vertex corrections in a homogeneous electron gas. In addition we analyzed the diagrammatic content of photocurrent with density functional theory. The expression for the photocurrent was obtained as an integral over the Kohn-Sham spectral function renormalized by effective potentials that depend on the exchange correlation kernel of current density functional theory. The expression for the photocurrent gives us the angular dependence of the photocurrent but it does not provide a direct access to the kinetic energy distribution of the photoelectrons.
The one-particle Green function of a many-electron system is traditionally formulated within the self-energy picture. A different formalism was recently proposed, in which the self-energy is replaced by a dynamical exchange-correlation field, which acts on the Green function locally in both space and time. It was found that there exists a fundamental quantity, referred to as the dynamical exchange-correlation hole, which can be interpreted as effective density fluctuations induced in a many-electron system when a hole or an electron is introduced into the system, as in photoemission and inverse photoemission experiments. The dynamical exchange-correlation potential is simply the Coulomb potential of this exchange-correlation hole, which fulfils a sum rule and an exact constraint, identical to those satisfied by the static exchange-correlation hole in density-functional theory. The proposed formalism has been applied to a number of model systems such as the half-filled one-dimensional Hubbard model, the one-dimensional antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model, and the single-impurity Anderson model. The dynamical exchange-correlation hole and field of the homogeneous electron gas have also been studied with the view of constructing a density-functional approximation such as the local-density approximation. The availability of simple but accurate approximations for the exchange-correlation potential would circumvent costly computations of the traditional self-energy. The formalism may also provide new perspectives and insights into the many-body problem.