The real-time contour formalism for Green's functions provides time-dependent information of quantum many-body systems. In practice, the long-time simulation of systems with a wide range of energy scales is challenging due to both the storage requirements of the discretized Green's function and the computational cost of solving the Dyson equation. In this paper, we apply a real-time discretization based on a piecewise high-order orthogonal-polynomial expansion to address these issues. We present a superconvergent algorithm for solving the real-time equilibrium Dyson equation using the Legendre spectral method and the recursive algorithm for Legendre convolution. We show that the compact high-order discretization in combination with our Dyson solver enables long-time simulations using far fewer discretization points than needed in conventional multistep methods. As a proof of concept, we compute the molecular spectral functions of ${\mathrm{H}}_{2}$, LiH, ${\mathrm{He}}_{2}$, and ${\mathrm{C}}_{6}{\mathrm{H}}_{4}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ using self-consistent second-order perturbation theory and compare the results with standard quantum chemistry methods as well as the auxiliary second-order Green's function perturbation theory method.
The real-time contour formalism for Green's functions provides time-dependent information of quantum many-body systems. In practice, the long-time simulation of systems with a wide range of energy scales is challenging due to both the storage requirements of the discretized Green's function and the computational cost of solving the Dyson equation. In this paper, we apply a real-time discretization based on a piecewise high-order orthogonal-polynomial expansion to address these issues. We present a superconvergent algorithm for solving the real-time equilibrium Dyson equation using the Legendre spectral method and the recursive algorithm for Legendre convolution. We show that the compact high-order discretization in combination with our Dyson solver enables long-time simulations using far fewer discretization points than needed in conventional multistep methods. As a proof of concept, we compute the molecular spectral functions of H2, LiH, He2, and C6H4O2 using self-consistent second-order perturbation theory and compare the results with standard quantum chemistry methods as well as the auxiliary second-order Green's function perturbation theory method.
Quantum many-body systems in thermal equilibrium can be described by the imaginary time Green’s function formalism. However, the treatment of large molecular or solid ab initio problems with a fully realistic Hamiltonian in large basis sets is hampered by the storage of the Green’s function and the precision of the solution of the Dyson equation. We present a Legendre-spectral algorithm for solving the Dyson equation that addresses both of these issues. By formulating the algorithm in Legendre coefficient space, our method inherits the known faster-than-exponential convergence of the Green’s function’s Legendre series expansion. In this basis, the fast recursive method for Legendre polynomial convolution enables us to develop a Dyson equation solver with quadratic scaling. We present benchmarks of the algorithm by computing the dissociation energy of the helium dimer He2 within dressed second-order perturbation theory. For this system, the application of the Legendre spectral algorithm allows us to achieve an energy accuracy of 10−9Eh with only a few hundred expansion coefficients.
We present a systematic comparison of the real-time Dyson expansion (RTDE) with established non-equilibrium Green's function approaches for simulating driven, interacting quantum systems. Focusing on density matrix dynamics, time-off-diagonal Green's functions, and time-resolved photoemission spectra, we benchmark RTDE against fully self-consistent Kadanoff-Baym equation (KBE) calculations, the generalized Kadanoff-Baym ansatz (GKBA), and exact diagonalization for small systems using second order many-body perturbation theory. Using a driven two-band Hubbard model, we show that mean-field single particle density matrix trajectories provide a reliable baseline for RTDE across a broad range of interaction strengths and excited-carrier populations. Further, RTDE accurately captures correlation effects in the Green's functions, including long-lived oscillations and revivals that are strongly suppressed by the overdamping inherent to self-consistent KBE schemes. As a consequence, RTDE resolves rich non-equilibrium spectral structure in time-resolved photoemission, such as interaction- and population-dependent quasiparticle splittings and bandgap renormalization, which are largely washed out in self-consistent approaches, yet are present in the exact solutions. Our results demonstrate that RTDE bridges the gap between mean-field propagation and full two-time KBE simulations, retaining favorable linear scaling while capturing essential dynamical correlations relevant for ultrafast spectroscopy.
Real-time Dyson expansion for the nonequilibrium GW approximation: Correlated spectra and dependence on the reference propagator
Electronic spectra provide direct insight into the excitations and correlations of condensed matter systems. Their description requires electron correlations beyond mean field. In equilibrium, the GW approximation has become the method of choice for many materials. Extending this approximation to nonequilibrium, however, is challenging. Full two-time GW simulations within the nonequilibrium Green's functions approach scale at least cubically with propagation time, whereas improved scaling schemes such as time-local (adiabatic) approximations or the generalized Kadanoff--Baym ansatz usually retain only mean-field character in the spectra. The recently introduced real-time Dyson expansion recovers dynamical correlations in the spectrum at time-linear cost, but has so far been restricted to the second-order Born approximation with mean-field reference propagators. Here we formulate and implement the RT-DE for the nonequilibrium GW self-energy with reference propagators of general form whose off-diagonal evolution is time local. In particular, we assess Hartree--Fock propagators, propagators with statically screened exchange with nonequilibrium screening, and a correlated propagator based on the Hartree--Fock GKBA. Benchmarks against exact diagonalization for a driven two-band lattice model with long-range interactions show that the mean-field and statically screened references yield the most accurate spectra, including satellite structures absent at mean-field level, whereas the GKBA-based approach best captures scattering-induced occupation dynamics, but artificially broadens and splits spectral peaks. When applied to large systems that are beyond the reach of exact methods, the scheme resolves the excitonic replica of the valence band and satellites identified as exciton shake-up, as well as their reshaping with increasing excitation density.
We report an implementation of self-consistent Green's function many-body theory within a second-order approximation (GF2) for application with molecular systems. This is done by iterative solution of the Dyson equation expressed in matrix form in an atomic orbital basis, where the Green's function and self-energy are built on the imaginary frequency and imaginary time domain, respectively, and fast Fourier transform is used to efficiently transform these quantities as needed. We apply this method to several archetypical examples of strong correlation, such as a H32 finite lattice that displays a highly multireference electronic ground state even at equilibrium lattice spacing. In all cases, GF2 gives a physically meaningful description of the metal to insulator transition in these systems, without resorting to spin-symmetry breaking. Our results show that self-consistent Green's function many-body theory offers a viable route to describing strong correlations while remaining within a computationally tractable single-particle formalism.
Abstract We consider the numerical solution of the real-time equilibrium Dyson equation, which is used in calculations of the dynamical properties of quantum many-body systems. We show that this equation can be written as a system of coupled, nonlinear, convolutional Volterra integro-differential equations, for which the kernel depends self-consistently on the solution. As is typical in the numerical solution of Volterra-type equations, the computational bottleneck is the quadratic-scaling cost of history integration. However, the structure of the nonlinear Volterra integral operator precludes the use of standard fast algorithms. We propose a quasilinear-scaling FFT-based algorithm which respects the structure of the nonlinear integral operator. The resulting method can reach large propagation times and is thus well-suited to explore quantum many-body phenomena at low energy scales. We demonstrate the solver with two standard model systems: the Bethe graph and the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model.
We present results for many-body perturbation theory for the one-body Green's function at finite temperatures using the Matsubara formalism. Our method relies on the accurate representation of the single-particle states in standard Gaussian basis sets, allowing to efficiently compute, among other observables, quasiparticle energies and Dyson orbitals of atoms and molecules. In particular, we challenge the second-order treatment of the Coulomb interaction by benchmarking its accuracy for a well-established test set of small molecules, which includes also systems where the usual Hartree-Fock treatment encounters difficulties. We discuss different schemes how to extract quasiparticle properties and assess their range of applicability. With an accurate solution and compact representation, our method is an ideal starting point to study electron dynamics in time-resolved experiments by the propagation of the Kadanoff-Baym equations.