Abstract Recently a novel approach to find approximate exchange–correlation functionals in density-functional theory was presented (Mordovina et al 2019 J. Chem. Theory Comput. 15 5209), which relies on approximations to the interacting wave function using density-matrix embedding theory (DMET). This approximate interacting wave function is constructed by using a projection determined by an iterative procedure that makes parts of the reduced density matrix of an auxiliary system the same as the approximate interacting density matrix. If only the diagonal of both systems are connected this leads to an approximation of the interacting-to-non-interacting mapping of the Kohn–Sham approach to density-functional theory. Yet other choices are possible and allow to connect DMET with other density-functional theories such as kinetic-energy density functional theory or reduced density-matrix functional theory. In this work we give a detailed review of the basics of the DMET procedure from a density-functional perspective and show how both approaches can be used to supplement each other. We do not present a specific realization of combining density-functional methods with DMET but rather provide common grounds to facilitate future developments that encompass both approaches. We do so explicitly for the case of a one-dimensional lattice system, as this is the simplest setting where we can apply DMET and the one that was originally presented. Among others we highlight how the mappings of density-functional theories can be used to identify uniquely defined auxiliary systems and projections in DMET and how to construct approximations for different density-functional theories using DMET inspired projections. Such alternative approximation strategies become especially important for density-functional theories that are based on non-linearly coupled observables such as kinetic-energy density-functional theory, where the Kohn–Sham fields are no longer obtainable by functional differentiation of an energy expression, or for reduced density-matrix functional theories, where a straightforward Kohn–Sham construction is not feasible.
Abstract Recently a novel approach to find approximate exchange–correlation functionals in density-functional theory was presented (Mordovina et al 2019 J. Chem. Theory Comput. 15 5209), which relies on approximations to the interacting wave function using density-matrix embedding theory (DMET). This approximate interacting wave function is constructed by using a projection determined by an iterative procedure that makes parts of the reduced density matrix of an auxiliary system the same as the approximate interacting density matrix. If only the diagonal of both systems are connected this leads to an approximation of the interacting-to-non-interacting mapping of the Kohn–Sham approach to density-functional theory. Yet other choices are possible and allow to connect DMET with other density-functional theories such as kinetic-energy density functional theory or reduced density-matrix functional theory. In this work we give a detailed review of the basics of the DMET procedure from a density-functional perspective and show how both approaches can be used to supplement each other. We do not present a specific realization of combining density-functional methods with DMET but rather provide common grounds to facilitate future developments that encompass both approaches. We do so explicitly for the case of a one-dimensional lattice system, as this is the simplest setting where we can apply DMET and the one that was originally presented. Among others we highlight how the mappings of density-functional theories can be used to identify uniquely defined auxiliary systems and projections in DMET and how to construct approximations for different density-functional theories using DMET inspired projections. Such alternative approximation strategies become especially important for density-functional theories that are based on non-linearly coupled observables such as kinetic-energy density-functional theory, where the Kohn–Sham fields are no longer obtainable by functional differentiation of an energy expression, or for reduced density-matrix functional theories, where a straightforward Kohn–Sham construction is not feasible.
The equivalence in one-electron quantum baths between the practical implementation of density matrix embedding theory (DMET) and the more recent Householder-transformed density matrix functional embedding theory has been shown previously in the standard but special case where the reference full-size (one-electron reduced) density matrix, from which the bath is constructed, is idempotent [S. Yalouz et al., J. Chem. Phys. 157, 214112 (2022)]. We prove mathematically that the equivalence remains valid when the density matrix is not idempotent anymore, thus allowing for the construction of correlated (one-electron) quantum baths. A density-matrix functional exactification of DMET is derived within the present unified quantum embedding formalism. Numerical examples reveal that the embedding cluster can be quite sensitive to the level of density-matrix functional approximation used for computing the reference density matrix.
Providing sufficient accuracy at low-computational cost, not surprisingly, density-functional theory ( DFT ) is a standard tool in theoretical material science. Similarly, quantum-electrodynamical density-functional theory ( QEDFT ) provides a promising route to describe experiments at the interface of quantum optics and quantum chemistry. Formally, in the Kohn-Sham ( KS ) formulation of DFT and QEDFT the exact many-particle Schrödinger equation is replaced by a set of coupled non-linear one-particle differential equations. The electron-electron, the electron-ion and the electron-photon interactions of the interacting system are mimicked by their corresponding effective KS potential with an, in principle unknown exchange-correlation ( xc ) term. In practice, DFT and QEDFT require approximations for this xc potential. The quality of which fully determines how much the DFT and QEDFT observables deviate from the exact ones. Understanding the shortcomings and improving the quality of approximate functionals makes the study of the exact functional of model systems indispensable. Here, we employ exact diagonalization for the Hamiltonian of different types of real-space lattice models in one spatial dimension to access the ground-state wave function, and thus to explicitly construct the exact functionals of DFT and QEDFT . To study the functional behavior of purely electronic systems, we consider two singlet-state electrons moving in an external potential with two connected atomic wells of variable depth and distance. To study coupled electron-photon systems, we consider the Rabi Hamiltonian with variable electron-photon coupling strength. By varying the model parameters, we systematically construct the functionals for systems from weak to strong coupling between the building blocks of the global system. Using the concept of the effective density-to- potential map, we discuss the intrasystem steepening which is an exact condition on the xc functional that captures the static correlation present in the system and carve out how it relates to the well-known intersystem derivative discontinuity. We further construct arbitrary observables as functionals of the internal variables which are directly affected by such features of the effective density-to-potential map. By constructing the reduced dipole map in the four-particle case of coupled electron-photon system, we show that the density-to-potential map helps to identify and understand recently discovered physical effects in the field of strongly coupled electron-photon systems. This work provides a contribution to the development of approximate function- als required in practical density-functional calculations of arbitrary experimentally accessible observables. Both the intrasystem steepening and the intersystem derivative discontinuity play a crucial role for systems with highly-localized electrons. Including both features in approximate functionals will improve the accu- racy of DFT evaluation of observables for such systems. Those results provide novel insight into the properties of the exact xc potentials in QEDFT . This work opens a new route to construct new functionals using coarse-grained or embed- ding approaches within the general and exact frameworks of DFT and QEDFT.
We introduce density matrix embedding theory (DMET), a quantum embedding theory for computing frequency-independent quantities, such as ground-state properties, of infinite systems. Like dynamical mean-field theory, DMET maps the bulk interacting system to a simpler impurity model and is exact in the noninteracting and atomic limits. Unlike dynamical mean-field theory, DMET is formulated in terms of the frequency-independent local density matrix, rather than the local Green's function. In addition, it features a finite, algebraically constructible bath of only one bath site per impurity site, with no bath discretization error. Frequency independence and the minimal bath make DMET a computationally simple and efficient method. We test the theory in the one-dimensional and two-dimensional Hubbard models at and away from half filling, and we find that compared to benchmark data, total energies, correlation functions, and metal-insulator transitions are well reproduced, at a tiny computational cost.
The Schrödinger equation describes the motion of the microscopic particles that constitute our world such as the electrons or atomic nuclei. Albeit being applicable to the smallest particle that we know of, it has observable consequences in the macroscopic world. It determines the conductivity of metals, it tells us which materials are magnetic and whether they show exotic behaviour such as super-conductivity. Unfortunately, solving the Schrödinger equation directly for any piece of material that is visible for the human eye is practically impossible. Already a grain of sand contains 1023 (that is written out 10.000.000.000.000.000.000.000) electrons and atomic nuclei. This means that only specifying the initial positions of the particles requires to safe an incredible amount of data; a procedure which is unfeasible for any human or computer. Due to the fundamental problem of applying quantum mechanics to practically relevant scenarios, a number of eective and approximate methods have been developed. In essence, they all try to reduce the dimension of the problem, i.e., the curse of the enormous amount of data required to simulate the Schrödinger equation. In this thesis, we try to analyze and expand one of those method called Density Matrix Embedding Theory (DMET). In a lot of physical system, especially when considering solid states, we can already learn a lot about its physics when describing its properties on a small fragment of the whole system. In a system with interacting particles though, we cannot simply consider just a subsystem and describe its properties without taking into account its interactions with the rest of the system. The basic idea of DMET is to divide the considered system into two parts called impurity and envi- ronment. The impurity is chosen to be so small that its wave function can be computed exactly. In the environment, only those degrees of freedom directly interacting with the impurity are considered and are included in our description. The physics on the environment itself is neglected. In the following, we will explain in detail how this can be done specically. In part I of this thesis, we will set the stage for the considered systems and present well-known and established methods to solve them. In the next part II, we will present DMET in great mathematical detail, which allows us to illustrate the advantages of DMET, but also some problems and drawbacks. We proceed by expanding DMET to the treatment of coupled electron-phonon system in part III and applying this new method to the Hubbard-Holstein model. Part of this work has been published in [53]. Finally, in part IV, we discuss some problems of DMET and, by combining DMET with functional theories, solve these problems. These insights, together with the extensive discussion of the DMET algorithm, will be published soon [59]. We illustrate this new method with an example system. This work will be published in paper [44] soon. We conclude this thesis by a summary and outlook (part V).
Quantum embedding is a divide and conquer strategy that aims at solving the electronic Schrödinger equation of sizeable molecules or extended systems. We establish in the present work a clearer and in-principle-exact connection between density matrix embedding theory (DMET) and density-functional theory (DFT) within the simple but nontrivial one-dimensional Hubbard model. For that purpose, we use our recent reformulation of single-impurity DMET as a Householder transformed density-matrix functional embedding theory (Ht-DMFET). On the basis of well-identified density-functional approximations, a self-consistent local potential functional embedding theory (LPFET) is formulated and implemented. Combining both LPFET and DMET numerical results with our formally exact density-functional embedding theory reveals that a single statically embedded impurity can in principle describe the density-driven Mott–Hubbard transition, provided that a complementary density-functional correlation potential (which is neglected in both DMET and LPFET) exhibits a derivative discontinuity (DD) at half filling. The extension of LPFET to multiple impurities (which would enable to circumvent the modeling of DDs) and its generalization to quantum chemical Hamiltonians are left for future work.
Quantum embedding based on the (one-electron-reduced) density matrix is revisited by means of the unitary Householder transformation. While being exact and equivalent to (but formally simpler than) density matrix embedding theory (DMET) in the noninteracting case, the resulting Householder-transformed density matrix functional embedding theory (Ht-DMFET) preserves, by construction, the single-particle character of the bath when electron correlation is introduced. In Ht-DMFET, the projected ``impurity+bath'' cluster's Hamiltonian (from which approximate local properties of the interacting lattice can be extracted) becomes an explicit functional of the density matrix. In the spirit of single-impurity DMET, we consider in this work a closed (two-electron) cluster constructed from the full-size noninteracting density matrix. When the (Householder-transformed) interaction on the bath site is taken into account, per-site energies obtained for the half-filled one-dimensional Hubbard lattice match almost perfectly the exact Bethe ansatz results in all correlation regimes. In the strongly correlated regime, the results deteriorate away from half-filling. This can be related to the electron number fluctuations in the (two-site) cluster which are neither described in Ht-DMFET nor in regular DMET. As expected, the per-site energies dramatically improve when increasing the number of embedded impurities. Formal connections with density/density matrix functional theories have been briefly discussed and should be explored further. Work is currently in progress in this direction.