Reduced density matrix functional theory (RDMFT) and coupled cluster theory restricted to paired double excitations (pCCD) are emerging as efficient methodologies for accounting for the so-called non-dynamic electronic correlation effects. Up to now, molecular calculations have been performed with real-valued orbitals. However, before extending the applicability of these methodologies to extended systems, where Bloch states are employed, the subtleties of working with complex-valued orbitals and the consequences of imposing time-reversal symmetry must be carefully addressed. In this work, we describe the theoretical and practical implications of adopting time-reversal symmetry in RDMFT and pCCD when allowing for complex-valued orbital coefficients. The theoretical considerations primarily affect the optimization algorithms, while the practical implications raise fundamental questions about the stability of solutions. In particular, we find that complex solutions lower the energy when non-dynamic electronic correlation effects are pronounced. We present numerical examples to illustrate and discuss these instabilities and possible problems introduced by N-representability violations.
Reduced density matrix functional theory (RDMFT) and coupled cluster theory restricted to paired double excitations (pCCD) are emerging as efficient methodologies for accounting for the so-called non-dynamic electronic correlation effects. Up to now, molecular calculations have been performed with real-valued orbitals. However, before extending the applicability of these methodologies to extended systems, where Bloch states are employed, the subtleties of working with complex-valued orbitals and the consequences of imposing time-reversal symmetry must be carefully addressed. In this work, we describe the theoretical and practical implications of adopting time-reversal symmetry in RDMFT and pCCD when allowing for complex-valued orbital coefficients. The theoretical considerations primarily affect the optimization algorithms, while the practical implications raise fundamental questions about the stability of solutions. In particular, we find that complex solutions lower the energy when non-dynamic electronic correlation effects are pronounced. We present numerical examples to illustrate and discuss these instabilities and possible problems introduced by N-representability violations.
Wave functions constructed from electron-pair states can accurately model strong electron correlation effects and are promising approaches especially for larger many-body systems. In this article, we analyze the nature and the type of electron correlation effects that can be captured by wave functions restricted to electron-pair states. We focus on the pair-coupled-cluster doubles (pCCD) ansatz also called the antisymmetric product of the 1-reference orbital geminal (AP1roG) method, combined with an orbital optimization protocol presented in Boguslawski et al. [Phys. Rev. B 89, 201106(R) (2014)], whose performance is assessed against electronic structures obtained form density-matrix renormalization-group reference data. Our numerical analysis covers model systems for strong correlation: the one-dimensional Hubbard model with a periodic boundary condition as well as metallic and molecular hydrogen rings. Specifically, the accuracy of pCCD/AP1roG is benchmarked using the single-orbital entropy, the orbital-pair mutual information, as well as the eigenvalue spectrum of the one-orbital and two-orbital reduced density matrices. Our study indicates that contributions from singly occupied states become important in the strong correlation regime which highlights the limitations of the pCCD/AP1roG method. Furthermore, we examine the effect of orbital rotations within the pCCD/AP1roG model on correlations between orbital pairs.
Wave functions based on electron-pair states provide inexpensive and reliable models to describe quantum many-body problems containing strongly correlated electrons, given that broken-pair states have been appropriately accounted for by, for instance, a posteriori corrections. In this article, we analyze the performance of electron-pair methods in predicting orbital-based correlation spectra. We focus on the (orbital-optimized) pair-coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) ansatz with a linearized coupled-cluster (LCC) correction. Specifically, we scrutinize how orbital-based entanglement and correlation measures can be determined from a pCCD-tailored CC wave function. Furthermore, we employ the single-orbital entropy, the orbital-pair mutual information, and the eigenvalue spectra of the two-orbital reduced density matrices to benchmark the performance of the LCC correction for the one-dimensional Hubbard model with the periodic boundary condition as well as the N2 and F2 molecules against density matrix renormalization group reference calculations. Our study indicates that pCCD-LCC accurately reproduces the orbital-pair correlation patterns in the weak correlation limit and for molecules close to their equilibrium structure. Hence, we can conclude that pCCD-LCC predicts reliable wave functions in this regime.
Perhaps the most important approximations to the electronic structure problem in quantum chemistry are those based on coupled cluster and density functional theories. Coupled cluster theory has been called the ``gold standard'' of quantum chemistry due to the high accuracy that it achieves for weakly correlated systems. Kohn--Sham density functionals based on semilocal approximations are, without a doubt, the most widely used methods in chemistry and material science because of their high accuracy/cost ratio. The root of the success of coupled cluster and density functionals is their ability to efficiently describe the dynamic part of the electron correlation. However, both traditional coupled cluster and density functional approximations may fail catastrophically when substantial static correlation is present. This severely limits the applicability of these methods to a plethora of important chemical and physical problems such as, e.g., the description of bond breaking, transition states, transition metal-, lanthanide- and actinide-containing compounds, and superconductivity. In an attempt to tackle this problem, nonstandard (single-reference) coupled cluster-based techniques that aim to describe static correlation have been recently developed: pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) and singlet-paired coupled cluster doubles (CCD0). The ability to describe static correlation in pCCD and CCD0 comes, however, at the expense of important amounts of dynamic correlation so that the high accuracy of standard coupled cluster becomes unattainable. Thus, the reliable and efficient description of static and dynamic correlation in a simultaneous manner remains an open problem for quantum chemistry and many-body theory in general. In this thesis, different ways to combine pCCD and CCD0 with density functionals in order to describe static and dynamic correlation simultaneously (and efficiently) are explored. The combination of wavefunction and density functional methods has a long history in quantum chemistry (practical implementations have appeared in the literature since the 1970s). However, this kind of techniques have not achieved widespread use due to problems such as double counting of correlation and the symmetry dilemma---the fact that wavefunction methods respect the symmetries of Hamiltonian, while modern functionals are designed to work with broken symmetry densities. Here, particular mathematical features of pCCD and CCD0 are exploited to avoid these problems in an efficient manner. The two resulting families of approximations, denoted as pCCD+DFT and CCD0+DFT, are shown to be able to describe static and dynamic correlation in standard benchmark calculations. Furthermore, it is also shown that CCD0+DFT lends itself to combination with correlation from the direct random phase approximation (dRPA). Inclusion of dRPA in the long-range via the technique of range-separation allows for the description of dispersion correlation, the remaining part of the correlation. Thus, when combined with the dRPA, CCD0+DFT can account for all three-types of electron correlation that are necessary to accurately describe molecular systems. Lastly, applications of CCD0+DFT to actinide chemistry are considered in this work. The accuracy of CCD0+DFT for predicting equilibrium geometries and vibrational frequencies of actinide molecules and ions is assessed and compared to that of well-established quantum chemical methods. For this purpose, the f0 actinyl series (UO22+, NpO23+, PuO24+), the isoelectronic NUN, and Thorium (ThO, ThO2+) and Nobelium (NoO, NoO2) oxides are studied. It is shown that the CCD0+DFT description of these species agrees with available experimental data and is comparable with the results given by the highest-level calculations that are possible for such heavy compounds while being, at least, an order of magnitude lower in computational cost.
The works included in this thesis aim to extend the applications of pair-coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) theory. pCCD produces reliable results for strongly correlated chemical systems and performs better than other traditional quantum chemical methods. Still, achieving greater accuracy requires post-pCCD corrections, which steeply increase computational cost, limiting its widespread application. Quantum embedding approaches, which reserve accurate but high-cost methods for the active site of chemical change and approximated methods for other regions of a chemical system, can be used to circumvent this problem. In this context, two new pCCD-based embedding formulations have been implemented and tested. Both the pCCD-in-DFT and pCCD-in-pCCD methods produce reliable results across a wide range of intermolecular interactions. In particular, the latter method shows significantly better performance, as it does not depend on approximated density functionals. Additionally, estimation of molecular properties is also pertinent for practical applications with pCCD. As the traditional response-theory-based formulation for pCCD analyzed here did not meet the required level of accuracy, an alternate approach based on the expectation-value method was implemented for pCCD and post-pCCD methods. This approach produces excellent agreement with the references at a much lower computational cost, as we bypass the need to solve the response equations. Thus, the pCCD-in-pCCD embedding method and the expectation-value-pCCD approach provide routes for large-scale simulations of challenging, complex systems.
Density-Functional Theory (DFT), although widely used and very successful in the calculation of several observables, fails to correctly describe strongly correlated materials. In the first part of this work we, therefore, introduce reduced-density-matrix-functional theory (RDMFT) which is one possible way to treat electron correlation beyond DFT. Within this theory the one-body reduced density matrix (1-RDM) is used as the basic variable. Our main interest is the calculation of the fundamental gap which proves very problematic within DFT. In order to calculate the fundamental gap we generalize RDMFT to fractional particle numbers M by describing the system as an ensemble of an N and an N+1 particle system (with N≤ M≤N+1). For each fixed particle number, M, the total energy is minimized with respect to the natural orbitals and their occupation numbers. This leads to the total energy as a function of M. The derivative of this function with respect to the particle number has a discontinuity at integer particle number which is identical to the gap. In addition, we investigate the necessary and sufficient conditions for the 1-RDM of a system with fractional particle number to be N-representable. Numerical results are presented for alkali atoms, small molecules, and periodic systems. Another problem within DFT is the description of non-relativistic many- electron systems in the presence of magnetic fields. It requires the paramagnetic current density and the spin magnetization to be used as basic variables besides the electron density. However, electron-gas-based functionals of current-spin-density-functional Theory (CSDFT) exhibit derivative discontinuities as a function of the magnetic field whenever a new Landau level is occupied, which makes them difficult to use in practice. Since the appearance of Landau levels is, intrinsically, an orbital effect it is appealing to use orbital-dependent functionals. We have developed a CSDFT version of the optimized effective potential (OEP) method which allows for the use of explicitly orbital-dependent functionals in the context of CSDFT. We present the derivation of corresponding equations and show results for a quantum dot in external magnetic fields in the second part of this thesis.
The central problem in the modern electronic structure theory is the calculation of cor- relation energy, possibly by an approach that would account for both static and dynamic correlation in an efficient, balanced and accurate way. In this thesis, I present a collection of methods that combine the effective treatment of dynamic correlation by the coupled cluster theory with density matrix renormalization group, a well-established technique for calculations of strongly correlated systems. The connection between them is achieved via the tailored coupled clusters (TCC) ansatz, which conveniently does not impose any ad- ditional computational costs. After the successful initial assessment, we developed more efficient implementations of these methods by employing the local approaches based on pair natural orbitals. This way, we extended the range of possible applications to larger systems with thousands of basis functions. To assess the accuracy of TCC as well as its local counterparts, we performed a variety of benchmark calculations ranging from small, yet challenging systems such as the nitrogen molecule or tetramethyleneethane diradical, to larger molecules like oxo-Mn(Salen) or Fe(II)-porphyrin model. 1