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arXiv:2405.00425 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Quantum Monte Carlo study of the phase diagram of the two-dimensional uniform electron liquid

Sam Azadi, N. D. Drummond, Sam M. Vinko

Published Dec 30, 2024• 14 citations
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Abstract

We present a study of spin-unpolarized and spin-polarized two-dimensional uniform electron liquids using variational and diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (VMC and DMC) methods with Slater-Jastrow-backflow trial wave functions. Ground-state VMC and DMC energies are obtained in the density range 1 ≤ r s ≤ 40 . Single-particle and many-body finite-size errors are corrected using canonical-ensemble twist-averaged boundary conditions and extrapolation of twist-averaged energies to the thermodynamic limit of infinite system size. System-size-dependent errors in Slater-Jastrow-backflow DMC energies caused by partially converged VMC energy minimization calculations are discussed. We find that, for 1 ≤ r s ≤ 5 , optimizing the backflow function at each twist lowers the twist-averaged DMC energy at finite system size. However, nonsystematic system-size-dependent effects remain in the DMC energies, which can be partially removed by extrapolation from multiple finite system sizes to infinite system size. The DMC energies in the thermodynamic limit are used to parametrize a local spin density approximation correlation functional for inhomogeneous electron systems. Our zero-temperature phase diagram shows a single transition from a paramagnetic fluid to a hexagonal Wigner crystal at r s = 35 ( 1 ) , with no region of stability for a ferromagnetic fluid. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.110.245145

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We present a study of spin-unpolarized and spin-polarized two-dimensional uniform electron liquids using variational and diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (VMC and DMC) methods with Slater-Jastrow-backflow trial wave functions. Ground-state VMC and DMC energies are obtained in the density range 1 ≤ r s ≤ 40 . Single-particle and many-body finite-size errors are corrected using canonical-ensemble twist-averaged boundary conditions and extrapolation of twist-averaged energies to the thermodynamic limit of infinite system size. System-size-dependent errors in Slater-Jastrow-backflow DMC energies caused by partially converged VMC energy minimization calculations are discussed. We find that, for 1 ≤ r s ≤ 5 , optimizing the backflow function at each twist lowers the twist-averaged DMC energy at finite system size. However, nonsystematic system-size-dependent effects remain in the DMC energies, which can be partially removed by extrapolation from multiple finite system sizes to infinite system size. The DMC energies in the thermodynamic limit are used to parametrize a local spin density approximation correlation functional for inhomogeneous electron systems. Our zero-temperature phase diagram shows a single transition from a paramagnetic fluid to a hexagonal Wigner crystal at r s = 35 ( 1 ) , with no region of stability for a ferromagnetic fluid. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Variational and diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (VMC and DMC) methods with Slater-Jastrow-backflow trial wave functions are used to study the spin-polarized three-dimensional uniform electron fluid. We report ground state VMC and DMC energies in the density range $0.5\ensuremath{\le}{r}_{\text{s}}\ensuremath{\le}20$. Finite-size errors are corrected using canonical-ensemble twist-averaged boundary conditions and extrapolation of the twist-averaged energy per particle calculated at three system sizes (N=113,259,and387)(N=113, 259, \mathrm{and} 387)(N=113,259,and387) to the thermodynamic limit of infinite system size. The DMC energies in the thermodynamic limit are used to parametrize a local spin density approximation correlation function for inhomogeneous electron systems.
We have used the variational and diffusion quantum Monte Carlo methods to calculate the energy, pair-correlation function, static structure factor, and momentum density of the ground state of the two-dimensional (2D) homogeneous electron gas. We have used highly accurate Slater-Jastrow-backflow trial wave functions and twist averaging to reduce finite-size effects where applicable. We compare our results with others in the literature and construct a local-density-approximation exchange-correlation functional for 2D systems.
Variational and diffusion quantum Monte Carlo methods are employed to investigate the zero-temperature phase diagram of the three-dimensional homogeneous electron gas at very low density. Fermi fluid and body-centered cubic Wigner crystal ground-state energies are determined using Slater-Jastrow-backflow and Slater-Jastrow many-body wave functions at different densities and spin polarizations in finite simulation cells. Finite-size errors are removed using twist-averaged boundary conditions and extrapolation of the energy per particle to the thermodynamic limit of infinite system size. Unlike previous studies, our results show that the electron gas undergoes a first-order quantum phase transition directly from a paramagnetic fluid to a body-centered cubic crystal at density parameter rs=86.6(7){r}_{\text{s}}=86.6(7)rs​=86.6(7), with no region of stability for an itinerant ferromagnetic fluid.
The real-space variation quantum Monte Carlo (VMC) and diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (DMC) are used to calculate the energy bands and the effective mass of the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic two-dimensional uniform electron liquid (2D-UEL). The many-body finite-size errors are minimized by performing simulations for three system sizes with the number of electrons, N = 146 , 218, and 302, for paramagnetic and N = 91 , 139, and 151 for ferromagnetic systems. We consider 2D-UEL to be within the density range 1 ≤ r s ≤ 10 . The VMC and DMC results predict that the effective mass m * of the paramagnetic 2D-UEL at high density r s = 1 is very close to 1, suggesting that the effective mass renormalization due to electron-electron interaction is negligible. We find that m * of the paramagnetic 2D-UEL obtained by the VMC and DMC methods increases by r s but with different slopes. Our VMC and DMC results for ferromagnetic 2D-UEL indicate that m * decreases rapidly by reducing the density due to the strong suppression of the electron-electron interaction.
Good-ΓΓΓ Numbers: A Shell-Optimized Route to the Thermodynamic Limit in Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations of the High-Density Two-Dimensional Electron Gas
Single-particle finite-size errors remain a central obstacle in quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations of periodic systems, conventionally reduced via twist averaging (TA). Here we introduce Good-ΓΓΓ (GG) particle numbers as system sizes NNN at which the ΓΓΓ-point Hartree--Fock (HF) energy of the high-density two-dimensional uniform electron gas (2D UEG) lies anomalously close to its thermodynamic-limit (TL) value. All results in this work concern the 2D UEG in its high-density Fermi-liquid regime, rs=1r_s=1rs​=1--444. We systematically investigate the kinetic- and exchange-energy errors, ΔKE(N)ΔKE(N)ΔKE(N) and ΔEX(N)ΔEX(N)ΔEX(N), that underlie this one-body finite-size-error cancellation across four densities and both spin polarizations. We then compare diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) energies extrapolated to the TL from GG-NNN sequences against twist-averaged extrapolations at the same densities and polarizations, finding agreement to within a fraction of a millihartree in every case, independent of whether a 1/N1/N1/N or an N−5/4N^{-5/4}N−5/4 extrapolation form is used.
Accurate diffusion Monte Carlo technique within the fixed-node approximation has been used to determine the equation of state of the two-dimensional electron gas in three phases: the normal paramagnetic liquid, the ferromagnetic (spin-polarized) liquid, and the Wigner crystal. Our backflow fixed-node calculation, which is a significant improvement over two previous conflicting Slater-Jastrow calculations, shows that there is only one clear phase transition from the paramagnetic liquid to the Wigner crystal as the density decreases. Unlike the three-dimensional case, we do not see the stability of the polarized liquid phase at intermediate densities before the crystallization.