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Physical Review

Quantum Theory of Many-Particle Systems. I. Physical Interpretations by Means of Density Matrices, Natural Spin-Orbitals, and Convergence Problems in the Method of Configurational Interaction

Per‐Olov Löwdin

Published Mar 15, 1955• 3,587 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In order to calculate the average value of a physical quantity containing also many-particle interactions in a system of $N$ antisymmetric particles, a set of generalized density matrices are defined. In order to permit the investigation of the same physical situation in two complementary spaces, the Hermitean density matrix of order $k$ has two sets of indices of each $k$ variables, and it is further antisymmetric in each set of these indices.Every normalizable antisymmetric wave function may be expanded in a series of determinants of order $N$ over all ordered configurations formed from a basic complete set of one-particle functions ${\ensuremath{\psi}}_{k}$, which gives a representation of the wave function and its density matrices also in the discrete $k$-space. The coefficients in an expansion of an eigenfunction to a particular operator may be determined by the variation principle, leading to the ordinary secular equation of the method of configurational interaction. It is shown that the first-order density matrix may be brought to diagonal form, which defines the "natural spin-orbitals" associated with the system. The situation is then partly characterized by the corresponding occupation numbers, which are shown to lie between 0 and 1 and to assume the value 1, only if the corresponding spin-orbital occurs in all configurations necessary for describing the situation. If the system has exactly $N$ spin-orbitals which are fully occupied, the total wave function may be reduced to a single Slater determinant. However, due to the mutual interaction between the particles, this limiting case is never physically realized, but the introduction of natural spin-orbitals leads then instead to a configurational expansion of most rapid convergence.In case the basic set is of finite order $M$, the best choice of this set is determined by a form of extended Hartree-Fock equations. It is shown that, in this case, the natural spin-orbitals approximately fulfill some equations previously proposed by Slater.

DOI
10.1103/physrev.97.1474

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In order to calculate the average value of a physical quantity containing also many-particle interactions in a system of NNN antisymmetric particles, a set of generalized density matrices are defined. In order to permit the investigation of the same physical situation in two complementary spaces, the Hermitean density matrix of order kkk has two sets of indices of each kkk variables, and it is further antisymmetric in each set of these indices.Every normalizable antisymmetric wave function may be expanded in a series of determinants of order NNN over all ordered configurations formed from a basic complete set of one-particle functions \ensuremathψk{\ensuremath{\psi}}_{k}\ensuremathψk​, which gives a representation of the wave function and its density matrices also in the discrete kkk-space. The coefficients in an expansion of an eigenfunction to a particular operator may be determined by the variation principle, leading to the ordinary secular equation of the method of configurational interaction. It is shown that the first-order density matrix may be brought to diagonal form, which defines the "natural spin-orbitals" associated with the system. The situation is then partly characterized by the corresponding occupation numbers, which are shown to lie between 0 and 1 and to assume the value 1, only if the corresponding spin-orbital occurs in all configurations necessary for describing the situation. If the system has exactly NNN spin-orbitals which are fully occupied, the total wave function may be reduced to a single Slater determinant. However, due to the mutual interaction between the particles, this limiting case is never physically realized, but the introduction of natural spin-orbitals leads then instead to a configurational expansion of most rapid convergence.In case the basic set is of finite order MMM, the best choice of this set is determined by a form of extended Hartree-Fock equations. It is shown that, in this case, the natural spin-orbitals approximately fulfill some equations previously proposed by Slater.
A system of NNN antisymmetric particles, moving under the influence of a fixed potential and their mutual many-particle interactions, is investigated in the ordinary Hartree-Fock scheme, having the total wave function approximated by a single Slater determinant. It is shown that all the density matrices of various orders, the wave function, and the entire physical situation depends only on a fundamental invariant $\ensuremath{\rho}({x}_{1}, {x}_{2})$, which is identical with the first-order density matrix. The Hartree-Fock equations are expressed in terms of this quantity.The Hartree-Fock equations are also solved by expanding the eigenfunctions in a given complete set, and applications to the MO-LCAO theory of the electronic structure of molecules, and crystals are given. It is shown that, in this scheme, the entire physical situation depends on a charge- and bond-order matrix $R(\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\mu})$ with respect to the ordinary atomic spin-orbitals involved. The Hartree-Fock equations for this matrix are investigated.Finally, the ionized and excited states are investigated, and it is shown that the Hartree-Fock scheme has a high degree of physical visuality also in case of many-particle interactions. The excitation energy of the system is the difference (${{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{j}}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{i}$) between two "spin-orbital energies," being eigenvalues to the effective Hamiltonians associated with the two states under consideration.
In treating a system of NNN antisymmetric particles, it is shown that, if the total Hamiltonian Hop{\mathcal{H}}_{\mathrm{op}}Hop​ is degenerate, the eigenstates of the operator used for classifying the corresponding degenerate states may be selected by means of a "projection operator" O\mathcal{O}O. If the total wave function is approximated by such a projection of a single determinant, the description of the system may be reduced to the ordinary Hartree-Fock scheme treating this determinant, if the original Hamiltonian is replaced by a complete Hamiltonian ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{\mathrm{op}}={\mathcal{O}}^{\ifmmode\dagger\else\textdagger\fi{}}{\mathcal{H}}_{\mathrm{op}}\mathcal{O}$ containing also many-particle interactions. This approach corresponds to a "fixed" configurational interaction, but the scheme has preserved the physical simplicity and visuality of the Hartree-Fock approximation. The idea of "doubly filled" orbitals is abandoned, and the orbitals associated with different spins will automatically try to arrange themselves in such a way that particles having antiparallel spins will tend to avoid each other due to their mutual repulsion.
Many-electron theory is treated here with much attention focused on the synthesis of the density functional and density matrix theory. This synthesis shows that the exchange–correlation potential, normally obtained as the functional derivative with respect to the electron density of an assumed approximate exchange–correlation energy, can be written exactly in terms of the “near-diagonal” behavior of the fully interacting first-order density matrix and the diagonal of the second-order density matrix, thereby bypassing the functional derivative. Also involved, since the exchange–correlation potential is an “artifact” of reducing the many-electron Schrödinger equation to one-body Slater–Kohn–Sham equations, are the one-body orbitals derived from these latter equations, not just the density thereby obtained. This situation has then motivated a discussion of what constraints are placed on the low-order density matrices of atoms and molecules, described by an assumed spin-independent Hamiltonian, by the requirement that these matrices are constructed from an N-electron wave function which is an eigenfunction of the spin operators S2 and Sz. Some briefer discussion is added on the optimally convergent determinantal expansion of such an N-electron wave function, the relation between Brueckner and Löwdin natural orbitals being commented on as a by-product. In this latter context, it is noted that the exchange-only potential of density functional theory can be represented as a sum of two line integrals, each of which is path-dependent, the sum being, of course, path-independent. But in addition to knowledge of Slater–Kohn–Sham orbitals appearing as in the Harbola–Sahni exchange-only potential (which is one of the path-dependent terms), there is a kinetic correction. This involves Löwdin natural orbitals and their occupation numbers, but only now in the weak coupling limit of the electron–electron interaction, as emphasized in the kinetic “correction” to the Harbola–Sahni formula exhibited by Levy and the writer. Some directions for further work are briefly set out. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 74: 163–176, 1999
Abstract The spin-independent properties of an electronic system are completely determined by spinless density functions, P1(1; 1') and P 2( 1,2; 1',2 '), derived from the 1-and 2-electron density matrices, p1(1; 1') and p2(1,2 ; 1',2'). These functions, and their physical inter­-pretation, have been dealt with in part I: the present paper contains the generalizations necessary when the Hamiltonian contains spin terms (as in discussions of electron and nuclear spin resonance). The density matrices, and more generally the transition density matrices p1(kλ|1; 1') and p2(kλ|l,2; 1',2') associated with states and Φkand Φλ are resolved into spinless components associated with different spin situations: p1 has four such components (one giving the density of a-spin electrons, a second the density of β-spin electrons, and two with less direct physical significance), while p2 has sixteen components. It is shown that all components, for states k=(S, M),λ= (S',M') of given S, S', are determined by three 2-electron functions.For k=λ these reduce to p2, the spinless pair function, from which the electron density p1 may be derived by integration; Q2a ‘conditional' spin density, from which the (1-electron) spin density Q1 may be derived (as in the case of p1 and P2); Q c. a., a ‘coupling anisotropy function', which describes the anisotropy of spin-spin coupling associated with quantization of the spin z-component. It is also useful to introduce (though it is not an independent function). Qc, a ‘coupling density function', which measures the coupling between the spins of two electrons at different points in space. All spin-dependent effects, including the usual spin-spin and spin-orbit couplings and also (indirect) nuclear and electron-nuclear spin-spin couplings, may be related to the many- electron wave function through the above density functions. All the densities have a physical interpretation, independent of the precise nature of the wave functions (which may, for example, be the exact eigenfunctions of a spinless Hamiltonian or merely approximations of orbital form). The derivation of the density functions from approximate wave functions is considered in some detail. For functions describing weakly coupled electron groups (e. g. inner-shell and valence electrons) the densities may be expressed in terms of those of the separate groups. This reduction may be followed by an orbital description of each group; and subsequently, by a linear-combination-of-atomic-orbitals (l. c. a. o.) approximation. In the simpler approxi­mations, all the coupling effects discussed are determined by electron and spin ‘populations'. Preliminary calculations suggest that such approximations may in many cases be adequate.
The method of superposition of configurations, which provides a general solution of the quantum-mechanical many-particle problem (for fermions), is reformulated so that equations may be compared with those used in the Brueckner theory. Important differences occur in application to finite or nonuniform systems for which the Hartree-Fock or Brueckner self-consistent orbitals are not plane waves. In such cases nonvanishing single-particle matrix elements occur which cannot be described by the Brueckner formalism based on a two-particle operator. Equations for an effective two-particle operator, equivalent to the variational equations of the method of superposition of configurations, are derived for a basis of Hartree-Fock orbitals. At the expense of making the orbital basis dependent upon the effective two-particle operator, the orbital basis can be determined by a condition which is essentially that of the Brueckner method. This condition removes a class of matrix elements which do not necessarily vanish in the Hartree-Fock basis although they would be neglected to second order in a perturbation calculation starting from the Hartree-Fock wave function. The equations for the effective two-particle operator are formally the same in both cases but lead to different operators because of the different choice of basis. In neither case can the equations be written in terms of products of such operators, a formalism assumed in the Brueckner theory. It is shown that the Brueckner condition is not equivalent to the condition which would determine the best possible orbital basis for the form of wave function implied by the use of an effective operator dependent on two particles only. The argument of the present paper is limited to systems with a finite number of particles, since the variational principle used here is not applicable without modification to systems with an infinite number of particles.
We investigate the structure of the one-body reduced density matrix of three electron systems, i.e., doublet and quadruplet spin configurations, corresponding to the smallest interacting system with an open-shell ground state. To this end, we use configuration interaction (CI) expansions of the exact wave function in Slater determinants built from natural orbitals in a finite dimensional Hilbert space. With the exception of maximally polarized systems, the natural orbitals of spin eigenstates are generally spin dependent, i.e., the spatial parts of the up and down natural orbitals form two different sets. A measure to quantify this spin dependence is introduced and it is shown that it varies by several orders of magnitude depending on the system. We also study the ordering issue of the spin-dependent occupation numbers which has practical implications in reduced density matrix functional theory minimization schemes, when generalized Pauli constraints (GPCs) are imposed and in the form of the CI expansion in terms of the natural orbitals. Finally, we discuss the aforementioned CI expansion when there are GPCs that are almost "pinned."