The functional-renormalization-group aided density functional theory (FRG-DFT) is applied to the two-dimensional homogeneous electron gas (2DHEG). The correlation energy of the 2DHEG is derived as a function of the Wigner-Seitz radius ${r}_{\mathrm{s}}$ directly. We find that our correlation energy completely reproduces the exact behavior at the high-density limit. For finite density, the result of FRG-DFT shows good agreement with the Monte Carlo (MC) results in the high-density region, although the discrepancy between the FRG-DFT and MC results becomes larger as the system becomes more dilute. Our study is the first example in which the FRG-DFT is applied to more-than-one-dimensional models, and shows that the FRG-DFT is a feasible and promising method even for the analysis of realistic models for quantum many-body systems.
The functional-renormalization-group aided density functional theory (FRG-DFT) is applied to the two-dimensional homogeneous electron gas (2DHEG). The correlation energy of the 2DHEG is derived as a function of the Wigner-Seitz radius rs directly. We find that our correlation energy completely reproduces the exact behavior at the high-density limit. For finite density, the result of FRG-DFT shows good agreement with the Monte Carlo (MC) results in the high-density region, although the discrepancy between the FRG-DFT and MC results becomes larger as the system becomes more dilute. Our study is the first example in which the FRG-DFT is applied to more-than-one-dimensional models, and shows that the FRG-DFT is a feasible and promising method even for the analysis of realistic models for quantum many-body systems.
Strongly correlated electron systems host a plethora of fascinating physical phenomena and pose formidable challenges in their theoretical analysis. The challenges originate from the inherent complexity of the quantum many-body problem - no classical computer will ever be able to fully simulate these systems - and the lack of an effective single-particle picture, as the strong mutual interactions make it impossible to regard the electrons as independent from each other. As a consequence, most systems of correlated electrons can only be tackled approximately and numerically. In this thesis, we develop a set of numerical methods for strongly correlated electrons, which are inspired by the renormalization group (RG) idea of including degrees of freedom successively from high to low energies. This enables an efficient organization of the diverse fluctuations and is key for an accurate treatment of interacting quantum systems, where collective behavior and composite objects emerge at energy scales far below those of the microscopic constituents. In a first part, we consider the functional renormalization group (fRG), a versatile framework to study the flow of correlation functions upon modulating the underlying action. Though widely used, it has often acted more as a qualitative rather than quantitative method, due a nontransparent approximation induced by truncating the hierarchy of flow equations. We develop an iterative multiloop fRG (mfRG) scheme, which ameliorates this approximation and eliminates many of the drawbacks of fRG experienced hitherto. In particular, it restores the independence of results on the choice of RG regulator and establishes a rigorous relation to the parquet formalism. Furthermore, we show how to derive the flow equations directly from self-consistent many-body relations. This establishes a form of diagrammatic resummations at the two-particle level which circumvents ill-behaved two-particle-irreducible vertices. An application to the prototypical two-dimensional Hubbard model illustrates how our multiloop scheme elevates the fRG approach to correlated electron systems to a quantitative level. Secondly, we employ the numerical renormalization group (NRG), based on the iterative diagonalization of impurity Hamiltonians, in conjunction with the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) to describe local correlations in multiorbital systems. Having access to arbitrarily low temperatures and energies, NRG is a unique, real-frequency impurity solver for DMFT. It has been pivotal to the understanding of Hund metals, where strong correlations arise from Hund's rules even at moderate Coulomb repulsion. Building on recent methodological advances, we extend the range of application of DMFT+NRG from orbital-degenerate models to more realistic setups: We first study orbital differentiation in a three-orbital Hund-metal model and unravel key effects of the orbital-selective Mott transition. In a real-materials setting, we then incorporate the bandstructure from density functional theory (DFT) and analyze the archetypal Hund-metal material Sr2RuO4. We particularly follow its RG flow to the Fermi-liquid regime at previously inaccessible low temperatures and generally present DFT+DMFT+NRG as a new computational paradigm for strongly correlated materials. As a side project of our fRG work, we develop an algorithm to count Feynman diagrams from closed many-body relations, which reveals the surprising outcome that totally irreducible contributions are responsible for the factorial growth in the number of diagrams. Additionally, we use NRG to study transport through three-level quantum dots and provide benchmark data for other RG methods, which aim at further describing these systems in nonequilibrium.
The two-dimensional (2D) homogeneous electron gas (HEG) is a fundamental model in quantum many-body physics. It is important to theoretical and computational studies, where exchange-correlation energies computed in it serve as the foundation for density-functional calculations. It is also of direct relevance to a variety of experimental settings, especially with the rapid recent growth in 2D materials and moir\'e systems. In these experiments, metallic gates are often present, which screen the Coulomb interaction between electrons. The effect of the screening can qualitatively change the behavior of the 2D HEG, and requires accurate many-body computations to capture. In this paper, we perform state-of-the-art diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) calculations in the 2D HEG subjected to symmetric dual-gate screening. We systematically compute the correlation energy across a range of densities and gate separations for both spin unpolarized and fully polarized systems. A global fit is obtained for the correlation energy, using these data and imposing various limiting behaviors obtained from perturbation analysis. The functional will allow density-functional calculations to be performed for a variety of realistic experimental setups, which can accurately account for the presence of gates. We also investigate how the gate screening affects the bulk modulus, pair correlation function, and the structure factor of the 2D HEG, which can potentially be probed in experiments.
We propose a method that employs functionals of the one-electron reduced density matrix (density matrix) to capture long-range effects of electron correlation. The complementary short-range regime is treated with density functionals. In an effort to find approximations for the long-range density-matrix functional, a modified power functional is applied to the homogeneous electron gas with Coulomb interactions replaced by their corresponding long-range counterparts. For the power $\ensuremath{\beta}=1/2$ and the range-separation parameter $\ensuremath{\omega}=1/{r}_{s}$, the functional reproduces the correlation and the kinetic correlation energies with a remarkable accuracy for intermediate and large values of rs. Analysis of the Euler equation corresponding to this functional reveals correct rs expansion of the correlation energy in the limit of large rs. The first expansion coefficient is in very good agreement with that obtained from the modified Wigner-Seitz model.
Using a leading algorithmic implementation of the functional renormalization group (fRG) for interacting fermions on two-dimensional lattices, we provide a detailed analysis of its quantitative reliability for the Hubbard model. In particular, we show that the recently introduced multiloop extension of the fRG flow equations for the self-energy and two-particle vertex allows for a precise match with the parquet approximation also for two-dimensional lattice problems. The refinement with respect to previous fRG-based computation schemes relies on an accurate treatment of the frequency and momentum dependences of the two-particle vertex, which combines a proper inclusion of the high-frequency asymptotics with the so-called truncated unity fRG for the momentum dependence. The adoption of the latter scheme requires, as an essential step, a consistent modification of the flow equation of the self-energy. We quantitatively compare our fRG results for the self-energy and momentum-dependent susceptibilities and the corresponding solution of the parquet approximation to determinant quantum Monte Carlo data, demonstrating that the fRG is remarkably accurate up to moderate interaction strengths. The presented methodological improvements illustrate how fRG flows can be brought to a quantitative level for two-dimensional problems, providing a solid basis for the application to more general systems.
Using a leading algorithmic implementation of the functional renormalization group (fRG) for interacting fermions on two-dimensional lattices, we provide a detailed analysis of its quantitative reliability for the Hubbard model.In particular, we show that the recently introduced multiloop extension of the fRG flow equations for the self-energy and two-particle vertex allows for a precise match with the parquet approximation also for twodimensional lattice problems.The refinement with respect to previous fRG-based computation schemes relies on an accurate treatment of the frequency and momentum dependences of the two-particle vertex, which combines a proper inclusion of the high-frequency asymptotics with the so-called truncated unity fRG for the momentum dependence.The adoption of the latter scheme requires, as an essential step, a consistent modification of the flow equation of the self-energy.We quantitatively compare our fRG results for the self-energy and momentumdependent susceptibilities and the corresponding solution of the parquet approximation to determinant quantum Monte Carlo data, demonstrating that the fRG is remarkably accurate up to moderate interaction strengths.The presented methodological improvements illustrate how fRG flows can be brought to a quantitative level for two-dimensional problems, providing a solid basis for the application to more general systems.
Accurate treatment of the electronic correlation in inhomogeneous electronic systems, combined with the ability to capture the correlation energy of the homogeneous electron gas, allows to reach high predictive power in the application of density-functional theory. For two-dimensional systems we can achieve this goal by generalizing our previous approximation [Phys. Rev. B 79, 085316 (2009)] to a parameter-free form, which reproduces the correlation energy of the homogeneous gas while preserving the ability to deal with inhomogeneous systems. The resulting functional is shown to be very accurate for finite systems with an arbitrary number of electrons with respect to numerically exact reference data.