Recently several schemes have been proposed to perform self-consistent GW calculations within a one-particle (quasiparticle) approximation. These so-called quasiparticle self-consistent GW schemes have been found to be successful in reproducing band gaps of semiconductors but there is some arbitrariness in the choice of the ``effective'' one-particle Hamiltonian in these schemes and their validity has not been assessed. To avoid ambiguity in choosing the one-particle Hamiltonian, we propose a scheme which is based on L\"owdin's method of symmetric orthogonalization. In our approach we first calculate the true quasiparticle wave functions and energies with the real part of the frequency-dependent self-energy, and then orthonormalize these states using L\"owdin's procedure to construct the effective quasiparticle Hamiltonian. L\"owdin's procedure ensures that the obtained orthonormal orbitals are the closest to the original nonorthogonal quasiparticle wave functions in the least-square sense and uniquely defines the one-particle Hamiltonian. Unlike previous approaches, this approach takes into account the full frequency dependence and the off-diagonal elements of the self-energy without ambiguity. As test cases, we perform quasiparticle self-consistent GW calculations on NiO and Gd. We find that our results compare well with previous results obtained using a different effective Hamiltonian.
Recently several schemes have been proposed to perform self-consistent GW calculations within a one-particle (quasiparticle) approximation. These so-called quasiparticle self-consistent GW schemes have been found to be successful in reproducing band gaps of semiconductors but there is some arbitrariness in the choice of the ``effective'' one-particle Hamiltonian in these schemes and their validity has not been assessed. To avoid ambiguity in choosing the one-particle Hamiltonian, we propose a scheme which is based on L"owdin's method of symmetric orthogonalization. In our approach we first calculate the true quasiparticle wave functions and energies with the real part of the frequency-dependent self-energy, and then orthonormalize these states using L"owdin's procedure to construct the effective quasiparticle Hamiltonian. L"owdin's procedure ensures that the obtained orthonormal orbitals are the closest to the original nonorthogonal quasiparticle wave functions in the least-square sense and uniquely defines the one-particle Hamiltonian. Unlike previous approaches, this approach takes into account the full frequency dependence and the off-diagonal elements of the self-energy without ambiguity. As test cases, we perform quasiparticle self-consistent GW calculations on NiO and Gd. We find that our results compare well with previous results obtained using a different effective Hamiltonian.
Density functional theory (DFT) performs reasonably well for the determination of structural properties of many materials, but fails to predict electronic band gap values accurately. \nSuch a failure of DFT is not unexpected, since there exists no formal justification for interpreting the DFT eigenvalues as addition or removal energies of the many-body system (quasiparticle energies).\nAn alternative approach to the study of exchange-correlation effects in many-particle systems is provided by many-body perturbation theory (MBPT), which defines a rigorous approach to description of excited-state properties based on the Green's function formalism and the concept of quasiparticle electrons. Within MBPT, one can calculate the quasiparticle (QP) energies and the QP amplitudes by approximately solving, within the so-called GW approximation, the set of coupled integro-differential equations proposed by Hedin in 1965.\nThe GW method generally yields significantly better values for QP energies with respect to DFT as it accounts for the dynamic many-body effects in the electron-electron interaction going beyond the mean-field approximation of independent Kohn-Sham particles. The drawback of such an involved approach, however, is its large computational cost, which is mainly due to the evaluation of dielectric matrices, their inversion, and the solution of a non-Hermitian and nonlinear eigenvalue problem. \nThe first part of this PhD research is devoted to the implementation of an efficient and scalable coarse-grained parallel algorithms and the development of state-of-the-art methods to solve the GW equations.\nAll these techniques are then applied to the study of the quasiparticle band structures of SiO2 in the alpha quartz crystalline structure. The effects of the different approximations involved in the theory, the influence of self-consistency, and a systematic analysis of the reliability of the different plasmon-pole models are presented and discussed. \nThe second part of this PhD work is dedicated to the implementation of a methodological approach to the solution of the GW equations based on the so-called projector augmented wave method (PAW) proposed by Blochl in 1994. This new approach permits to remove many of the limitations intrinsic to the use of the pseudopotential technique widely used for ab-initio calculations, allowing one to reach GW results closer to an all-electron implementation while still maintaining computational efficiency, and flexibility. This allows us to achieve a coherent implementation of many different algorithms which enables a detailed comparison of GW calculations not yet performed until now. Results for the quasiparticle band structure and optical spectra of prototype s- and p-compounds are discussed and compared to recent studies reported in the scientific literature (when available).
The question of which non-interacting Green's function 'best' describes an interacting many-body electronic system is both of fundamental interest as well as of practical importance in describing electronic properties of materials in a realistic manner. Here, we study this question within the framework of Baym-Kadanoff theory, an approach where one locates the stationary point of a total energy functional of the one-particle Green's function in order to find the total ground-state energy as well as all one-particle properties such as the density matrix, chemical potential, or the quasiparticle energy spectrum and quasiparticle wave functions. For the case of the Klein functional, our basic finding is that minimizing the length of the gradient of the total energy functional over non-interacting Green's functions yields a set of self-consistent equations for quasiparticles that is identical to those of the quasiparticle self-consistent GW (QSGW) (van Schilfgaarde et al 2006 Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 226402-4) approach, thereby providing an a priori justification for such an approach to electronic structure calculations. In fact, this result is general, applies to any self-energy operator, and is not restricted to any particular approximation, e.g., the GW approximation for the self-energy. The approach also shows that, when working in the basis of quasiparticle states, solving the diagonal part of the self-consistent Dyson equation is of primary importance while the off-diagonals are of secondary importance, a common observation in the electronic structure literature of self-energy calculations. Finally, numerical tests and analytical arguments show that when the Dyson equation produces multiple quasiparticle solutions corresponding to a single non-interacting state, minimizing the length of the gradient translates into choosing the solution with largest quasiparticle weight.
We present self-consistent GW calculations for a quasi-one-dimensional model semiconductor, using multipole representations for W, the screened interaction, and G, the electron Green function. In the case of G, we distinguish between the quasiparticle contribution and the so-called incoherent contribution. We consider various strengths of the external potential. For two different starting points of the self-consistency cycle, local-density approximation and Hartree-Fock, the band gaps converge to the same values. The self-consistent GW band gaps differ very little from the Hartree-Fock band gaps. There is considerable disagreement with quantum Monte Carlo calculations for the same model, indicating the importance of vertex corrections.
We introduce a scheme through which the ground-state electronic density n and total energy Ev [n] of inhomogeneous interacting systems can be determined in a self-consistent (SC) way. It is based on a SC perturbation expansion for the single-particle Green function G. Our employed expansion is argued to be valid under all conditions provided that the ground-state charge density of the interacting system is pure-state non-interacting v representable. The formalism discussed in this paper has been applied to a quasi-one-dimensional periodic system. It has even been possible to carry out SC calculations with the dynamically screened exchange diagram (the so-called GW diagram, where W is the dynamically screened electron-electron interaction function) for the self-energy operator Σ. A coherent mode of interpretation of a number of our results entails that the overwhelming success of the GW framework in relatively accurately reproducing the experimental energy gaps of a number of semiconductors and insulators may be a direct consequence of non-self-consistency effects; whereas a non-self-consistent calculation in our tests increases the value of the local-density approximation (LDA) gap in the range of 40–65% of the ‘experimental’ gaps, self-consistency effects reduce this range to 14–17%. The same line of argument leads us to conclude that, in our model, 26–35% of the LDA error in the gap energies is due to the absence of a well known discontinuity in the LDA exchange-correlation potential, and the remaining part is due to the Kohn-Sham eigenvalues not being identifiable with one-particle excitation energies. A natural conclusion that may be drawn from these observations is that a correct description of excitation energies (e.g. of the gap energy) cannot be achieved without including, at least approximately, the vertex part of Σ, which is entirely absent in the GW scheme.
We extend the quasiparticle self-consistent approach beyond the GW approximation by using a range-separated vertex function. The developed approach yields band gaps, dielectric constants, and band positions with an accuracy similar to highest-level electronic-structure calculations without exceeding the cost of regular quasiparticle self-consistent GW. We introduce an exchange-correlation kernel that accounts for the vertex over the full spatial range. In the long range it complies with the Ward identity, while it is approximated through the adiabatic local density functional in the short range. In this approach, the renormalization factor is balanced and the higher-order diagrams are effectively taken into account.
We propose a framework to construct the ground-state energy and density matrix of an N-electron system by solving a self-consistent set of single-particle equations. The method can be viewed as a nontrivial extension of the Kohn-Sham scheme (which is embedded as a special case). It is based on separating the Green's function into a quasiparticle part and a background part, and expressing only the background part as a functional of the density matrix. The calculated single-particle energies and wave functions have a clear physical interpretation as quasiparticle energies and orbitals.