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arXiv:1709.01719 · New Journal of Physics

Systematic corrections to the Thomas–Fermi approximation without a gradient expansion

Thanh Tri Chau, Jun Hao Hue, Martin-Isbjörn Trappe, Berthold‐Georg Englert

Published Jun 20, 2018• 19 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We improve on the Thomas–Fermi approximation for the single-particle density of fermions by introducing inhomogeneity corrections. Rather than invoking a gradient expansion, we relate the density to the unitary evolution operator for the given effective potential energy and approximate this operator by a Suzuki–Trotter factorization. This yields a hierarchy of approximations, one for each approximate factorization. For the purpose of a first benchmarking, we examine the approximate densities for a few cases with known exact densities and observe a very satisfactory, and encouraging, performance. As a bonus, we also obtain a simple fourth-order leapfrog algorithm for the symplectic integration of classical equations of motion.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/aacde1

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We improve on the Thomas–Fermi approximation for the single-particle density of fermions by introducing inhomogeneity corrections. Rather than invoking a gradient expansion, we relate the density to the unitary evolution operator for the given effective potential energy and approximate this operator by a Suzuki–Trotter factorization. This yields a hierarchy of approximations, one for each approximate factorization. For the purpose of a first benchmarking, we examine the approximate densities for a few cases with known exact densities and observe a very satisfactory, and encouraging, performance. As a bonus, we also obtain a simple fourth-order leapfrog algorithm for the symplectic integration of classical equations of motion.
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A systematic method is presented for deriving the Thomas-Fermi equation for an atom and the quantum corrections from the many-body description. The novel feature of the method is that it does not require any a priori assumptions about the assignment of electrons to fully occupied single-particle states or about the distribution of electrons in phase space, but shows instead that the distribution which is usually assumed, or derived from the assumption of fully occupied single particle states, is a direct consequence of specifying that the many particle system is in its ground state. The procedure used in the derivation is the expansion of the mixed position-momentum representation of the Green's function in a series of powers of $\ensuremath{\hbar}$. The lowest order term is found to correspond with the Thomas-Fermi density. The form of the higher order terms, which are to be considered as corrections to zeroth order term, depends on the approximations made in the many-body equations for obtaining the Green's function. This paper deals only with the Hartree-Fock approximation, but the methods presented here allow generalization to other approximations which can include correlation effects.
Any proposed approximation to the ground-state kinetic energy of a system of noninteracting fermions in terms of the particle density \ensuremath{\rho}(r) can be used to estimate the potential field v(r) that will give rise to a given \ensuremath{\rho}(r), or the \ensuremath{\rho}(r) that will result from placing a given number of particles in a given v(r). Comparison with exact quantum-mechanical calculations thus gives two possible types of tests for any proposed kinetic-energy functional. This paper reports such tests for a recently proposed nonlocal functional applicable to one-dimensional systems, comparing its predictions for several simple problems not only with the correct answers but also with the predictions of Thomas-Fermi and Thomas-Fermi-Weizs\"acker functionals, to which the new functional proves considerably superior. The comparisons yield useful insights on the virtues and defects of the new functional, and on the directions in which improvements should be sought. Particular attention is devoted to Friedel oscillations and shell structure. It is shown that functionals of the Thomas-Fermi-Weizs\"acker type can never predict multiple maxima in \ensuremath{\rho} if v has only a single minimum and no maxima; the new functional does not have this defect, though it yields density oscillations rather weaker than the exact quantum-mechanical calculations. A natural general inference from the present tests is that any satisfactory kinetic-energy functional must (as ours does) replace the entire Thomas-Fermi term by a nonlocal expression.
A new approach has been used to determine directly the reduced single particle density matrix for noninteracting fermions in a one-dimensional potential. A time evolution operator closely related to the classical limit of the Feynman path integral propagator is derived which has superior behavior in turning point and nonclassical regions. This is used to determine the reduced density matrix in terms of the phase and time of oscillation at the Fermi energy. The density so obtained has the correct quantum oscillations and nonclassical tails and is a distinct improvement over the Thomas-Fermi density. Two simple examples are presented and implications for electronic structure calculations are discussed.
The semiclassical $\ensuremath{\hbar}$ expansion of the one-particle density matrix for a two-dimensional Fermi gas is calculated within the Wigner transform method of B. Grammaticos and A. Voros [Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 123, 359 (1979)], originally developed in the context of nuclear physics. The method of Grammaticos and Voros has the virtue of preserving both the Hermiticity and idempotency of the density matrix to all orders in the $\ensuremath{\hbar}$ expansion. As a topical application, we use our semiclassical expansion to go beyond the local-density approximation for the construction of the total dipole-dipole interaction energy functional of a two-dimensional, spin-polarized dipolar Fermi gas. We find a finite, second-order gradient correction to the Hartree-Fock energy, which takes the form $\ensuremath{\varepsilon}{(\mathbf{\ensuremath{\nabla}}\ensuremath{\rho})}^{2}/\sqrt{\ensuremath{\rho}}$, with $\ensuremath{\varepsilon}$ being small ($|\ensuremath{\varepsilon}|\ensuremath{\ll}1$) and negative. We test the quality of the corrected energy by comparing it with the exact results available for harmonic confinement. Even for small particle numbers, the gradient correction to the dipole-dipole energy provides a significant improvement over the local-density approximation.