High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Finite size error is commonly removed from coupled cluster theory calculations by N –1 extrapolations over correlation energy calculations of different system sizes ( N ), where the N –1 scaling comes from the total energy rather than the correlation energy. However, previous studies in the quantum Monte Carlo community suggest an exchange-energy-like power law of N –2/3 should also be present in the correlation energy when using the conventional Coulomb interaction. The rationale for this is that the total energy goes as N –1 and the exchange energy goes as N –2/3; thus, the correlation energy should be a combination of these two power laws. Further, in coupled cluster theory, these power laws are related to the low G scaling of the transition structure factor, S ( G ), which is a property of the coupled cluster wave function calculated from the amplitudes. We show here that data from coupled cluster doubles calculations on the uniform electron gas fit a function with a low G behavior of S ( G ) ∼ G . The prefactor for this linear term is derived from the exchange energy to be consistent with an N –2/3 power law at large N . Incorporating the exchange structure factor into the transition structure factor results in a combined structure factor of S ( G ) ∼ G 2, consistent with an N –1 scaling of the exchange-correlation energy. We then look for the presence of an N –2/3 power law in the energy. To do so, we first develop a plane-wave cutoff scheme with less noise than the traditional basis set used for the uniform electron gas. Then, we collect data from a wide range of electron numbers and densities to systematically test five methods using N –1 scaling, N –2/3 scaling, or combinations of both scaling behaviors. We find that power laws that incorporate both N –1 and N –2/3 scaling perform better than either alone, especially when the prefactor for N –2/3 scaling can be found from exchange energy calculations.
Recent calculations using coupled cluster on solids have raised the discussion of using a N –1/3 power law to fit the correlation energy when extrapolating to the thermodynamic limit, an approach which differs from the more commonly used N –1 power law, which is, for example, often used by quantum Monte Carlo methods. In this paper, we present one way to reconcile these viewpoints. Coupled cluster doubles calculations were performed on uniform electron gases reaching system sizes of 922 electrons for an extremely wide range of densities (0.1 < r s < 100.0) to study how the correlation energy approaches the thermodynamic limit. The data were corrected for the basis set incompleteness error and use a selected twist angle approach to mitigate the finite size error from shell filling effects. Analyzing these data, we initially find that a power law of N –1/3 appears to fit the data better than a N –1 power law in the large system size limit. However, we provide an analysis of the transition structure factor showing that N –1 still applies to large system sizes and that the apparent N –1/3 power law occurs only at low N .
We show that the conventional power law of the inverse of the particle number (
N−1) for extrapolation of total energies into the thermodynamic limit does not reproduce the Gell-Mann and Brueckner results for the three-dimensional high density electron gas, even when system sizes of
N∼2000 electrons are used. Instead, a power law of
N−1/3 fits the data beyond 1000 electrons, which has also been found by other authors. The
N−1/3 power law also appears to fit data from other densities better than
N−1. To explain this observation, we develop a novel analysis of the low-
G components of the wavefunction, and show they are not well-sampled enough, even at high electron numbers, to yield a straight-forward
N−1 convergence to the thermodynamic limit (TDL). We show that, for most practical calculations, the TDL correlation energy lies between the extrapolation from
N−1 and the extrapolation from
N−1/3. Furthermore, the energy extrapolation from an
N−1/3 power law tends to either increase or decrease with increasing system size, but when energies increase is an indication that
N−1 can effectively be used for extrapolation.
The workhorse method of computational materials science is undeniably density functional theory in the Kohn-Sham framework of approximate exchange and correlation energy functionals. However, the need for highly accurate predictions of ground and excited state properties in materials science motivates the further development and exploration of alternative as well as complementary techniques. Among these alternative approaches, quantum chemical wavefunction based theories and in particular coupled cluster theory hold the promise to fill a gap in the toolbox of computational materials scientists. Coupled cluster (CC) theory provides a compelling framework of approximate infinite-order perturbation theory in the form of an exponential of cluster operators describing the true quantum many-body effects of the electronic wave function at a computational cost that, despite being significantly more expensive than DFT, scales polynomially with system size. The hierarchy of size-extensive approximate methods established in the framework of CC theory achieves systematic improvability for many materials properties. This is in contrast to currently available density functionals that often suffer from uncontrolled approximations that limit the accuracy in the prediction of materials properties. In this tutorial-style review we will introduce basic concepts of coupled cluster theory and recent developments that increase its computational efficiency for calculations of molecules, solids and materials in general. We will touch upon the connection between coupled cluster theory and the random-phase approximation to bridge the gap between traditional quantum chemistry and many-body Green’s function theories that are widely-used in the field of solid state physics. We will discuss various approaches to improve the computational performance without compromising accuracy. These approaches include large-scale parallel design as well as techniques that reduce the prefactor of the computational complexity. A central part of this article discusses the convergence of calculated properties to the thermodynamic limit which is of significant importance for reliable predictions of materials properties and constitutes an additional challenge compared to calculations of large molecules. Furthermore we mention technical aspects of computer code implementations of periodic coupled cluster theories in different numerical frameworks of the one-electron orbital basis; the projector-augmented-wave formalism using a plane wave basis set and the numeric atom-centered-orbital with resolution-of-identity.
Finite-temperature many-body perturbation theory in the grand-canonical ensemble is fundamental to numerous methods for computing electronic properties at nonzero temperature, such as finite-temperature coupled-cluster. In most applications it is the average number of electrons that is known rather than the chemical potential. Expensive correlation calculations must be repeated iteratively in search for the interacting chemical potential that yields the desired average number of electrons. In extended systems with mobile charges the situation is particular, however. Long-ranged electrostatic forces drive the charges such that the average ratio of negative and positive charges is one for any finite chemical potential. All properties per electron are expected to be virtually independent of the chemical potential, as they are in an electric wire at different voltage potentials. This work shows that per electron, the exchange-correlation free energy and the exchange-correlation grand potential indeed agree in the infinite-size limit. Thus, only one expensive correlation calculation suffices for each system size, sparing the search for the interacting chemical potential. This work also demonstrates the importance of regularizing the Coulomb interaction such that each electron on average interacts only with as many electrons as there are electrons in the simulation, avoiding interactions with periodic images. Numerical calculations of the warm uniform electron gas have been conducted with the Spencer-Alavi regularization employing the finite-temperature Hartree approximation for the self-consistent field and linearized finite-temperature direct-ring coupled-cluster doubles for treating correlation.
We introduce a many-body method that combines two powerful many-body techniques, viz., quantum Monte Carlo and coupled cluster theory. Coupled cluster wave functions are introduced as importance functions in a Monte Carlo method designed for the configuration interaction framework to provide rigorous upper bounds to the ground-state energy. We benchmark our method on the homogeneous electron gas in momentum space. The importance function used is the coupled cluster doubles wave function. We show that the computational resources required in our method scale polynomially with system size. Our energy upper bounds are in very good agreement with previous calculations of similar accuracy, and they can be systematically improved by including higher order excitations in the coupled cluster wave function.
We analyze the problem of eliminating finite-size errors from quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) energy data. We demonstrate that both (i) adding a recently proposed [S. Chiesa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 076404 (2006)] finite-size correction to the Ewald energy and (ii) using the model periodic Coulomb (MPC) interaction [L. M. Fraser et al., Phys. Rev. B 53, 1814 (1996); P. R. C. Kent et al., Phys. Rev. B 59, 1917 (1999); A. J. Williamson et al., Phys. Rev. B 55, R4851 (1997)] are good solutions to the problem of removing finite-size effects from the interaction energy in cubic systems provided the exchange-correlation (XC) hole has converged with respect to system size. However, we find that the MPC interaction distorts the XC hole in finite systems, implying that the Ewald interaction should be used to generate the configuration distribution. The finite-size correction of Chiesa et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 076404 (2006)] is shown to be incomplete in systems of low symmetry. Beyond-leading-order corrections to the kinetic energy are found to be necessary at intermediate and high densities; we investigate the effect of adding such corrections to QMC data for the homogeneous electron gas. We analyze finite-size errors in two-dimensional systems and show that the leading-order behavior differs from that which has hitherto been supposed. We compare the efficiencies of different twist-averaging methods for reducing single-particle finite-size errors and we examine the performance of various finite-size extrapolation formulas. Finally, we investigate the system-size scaling of biases in diffusion QMC.