Within the density-functional theory of Hohenberg, Kohn and Sham, a comprehensive stress tensor is defined for a many-electron polyatomic system. This consists of contributions from kinetic energy, Coulomb energy and exchange correlation energy. The covariant derivative of the stress tensor yields the 'local' force density in three-dimensional space, which vanishes for static stationary states due to the balance between classical and quantum force densities. Some interesting implications of the zero force density are discussed. In particular, this turns out to be a special case of the Euler equation or the Navier-Stokes equation in fluid dynamics. The fluid-dynamical interpretation of the stress tensor is discussed and the viscosity coefficients are derived. The present work is likely to provide a basis for 'classical' interpretations of many molecular and solid-state phenomena.
Within the density-functional theory of Hohenberg, Kohn and Sham, a comprehensive stress tensor is defined for a many-electron polyatomic system. This consists of contributions from kinetic energy, Coulomb energy and exchange correlation energy. The covariant derivative of the stress tensor yields the 'local' force density in three-dimensional space, which vanishes for static stationary states due to the balance between classical and quantum force densities. Some interesting implications of the zero force density are discussed. In particular, this turns out to be a special case of the Euler equation or the Navier-Stokes equation in fluid dynamics. The fluid-dynamical interpretation of the stress tensor is discussed and the viscosity coefficients are derived. The present work is likely to provide a basis for 'classical' interpretations of many molecular and solid-state phenomena.
The concept of a stress tensor is fundamental in classical continuum mechanics, encapsulating internal forces per unit area that a material can sustain. In quantum many‑body systems, however, the notion of pressure and stress has traditionally been limited to scalar or local quantities derived from the equation of state or from density functional approximations. In this work we introduce a fully tensorial representation of electronic internal forces that arises naturally from the quantum mechanical description of electrons in condensed matter systems. We define the Electron Quantum Stress Tensor (EQST) as a second‑rank tensor operator constructed from the kinetic and interaction contributions to the many‑electron Hamiltonian. By deriving explicit expressions for the EQST in terms of the electron density, its gradients, and the exchange–correlation potential, we establish a direct link between the microscopic wavefunction and macroscopic mechanical observables. The EQST framework provides a new lens for interpreting phenomena in two‑dimensional electron gases, quantum Hall fluids, and other strongly correlated electronic materials, offering a potential route toward uncovering novel mechanical properties of electrons that could have implications for future Nobel‑level discoveries.
For an N-electron system, a connection is explored between density-functional theory and quantum fluid dynamics, through a dynamical extension of the former. First, we prove the Hohenberg–Kohn theorem for a time-dependent harmonic perturbation under conditions which guarantee the existence of the corresponding steady (or quasiperiodic) states of the system. The corresponding one-particle time-dependent Schrödinger equation is then variationally derived starting from a fluid-dynamical Lagrangian density. The subsequent fluid-dynamical interpretation preserves the ’’particle’’ description of the system in the sense that the N-electron fluid has N components each of which is an independent-particle Schrödinger fluid characterized by a density function ρj and an irrotational velocity field uj, j = 1,⋅⋅⋅,N. However, the mean velocity u of the fluid is not irrotational, in general. The force densities and the stress tensor occurring in the Navier–Stokes equation are physically interpreted. The present work is another step towards the interpretation of physicochemical phenomena in three-dimensional space.
There has been an enduring interest and controversy about whether or not one can define physically meaningful energy density and stress fields, e(r) and ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\beta}}(\mathbf{r})$, in quantum systems. A key issue is the kinetic energy since the well-known forms, $\frac{1}{2}{|\mathbf{\ensuremath{\nabla}}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}|}^{2}$ and $\ensuremath{-}\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}{\ensuremath{\nabla}}^{2}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}$, lead to different densities, and analogous issues arise for interaction energy terms. This paper considers the ground state of a system of many interacting particles in an external potential, and presents a resolution to the problems in steps. (1) For the kinetic energy all effects of exchange and correlation are shown to be unique functions defined at each point r; all issues of nonuniqueness are relegated to terms that involve only the density n(r) and are equivalent to an effective single-particle problem with ground state wave function s(r)=n(r)/N. (2) Interactions can be considered in two ways: in terms of potentials acting on particles or in terms of the interaction fields, e.g., the Maxwell form in terms of electric fields. In each case, the problem reduces to a mean field part that is a function of the density and a part due to correlation that is uniquely defined; however, it is different for the two cases. (3) The final results follow from the nature of energy and stress. Because the energy determines the ground state itself through the variational principle, the energy density approach leads directly to kinetic energy in the form $\ensuremath{-}\frac{1}{2}s{\ensuremath{\nabla}}^{2}s$ and interactions in terms of potentials acting on the particles. This leads naturally to density functional theory and provides an interpretation in which the energy density e(r) is equilibrated to minimize fluctuations with the same chemical potential at all points r. On the other hand, stress is related to forces, and the only physically acceptable expressions for the stress field involve the combination $\frac{1}{2}[s{\ensuremath{\nabla}}^{2}s\ensuremath{-}{|\mathbf{\ensuremath{\nabla}}s|}^{2}]$, as derived by Schr\"odinger, Pauli, and others, and Coulomb interactions in terms of electric fields, not potentials. Together these results lead to well-defined formulations of energy density and stress fields that are physically motivated and based on a clear set of arguments.
In the classical work by Irving and Zwanzig [Irving J.H. and Zwanzig R.W., J. Chem. Phys. 19 (1951), 1173-1180 ] it has been shown that quantum observables for macroscopic density, momentum and energy satisfy the conservation laws of fluid dynamics. This work derives the corresponding classical molecular dynamics limit by extending Irving and Zwanzig's result to matrix-valued potentials for a general quantum particle system. The matrix formulation provides the semi-classical limit of the quantum observables in the conservation laws, also in the case where the temperature is large compared to the electron eigenvalue gaps. The classical limit of the quantum observables in the conservation laws is useful in order to determine the constitutive relations for the stress tensor and the heat flux by molecular dynamics simulations. The main new steps to obtain the molecular dynamics limit is to: (i) approximate the dynamics of quantum observables accurately by classical dynamics, by diagonalizing the Hamiltonian using a non linear eigenvalue problem, (ii) define the local energy density by partitioning a general potential, applying perturbation analysis of the electron eigenvalue problem, (iii) determine the molecular dynamics stress tensor and heat flux in the case of several excited electron states, and (iv) construct the initial particle phase-space density as a local grand canonical quantum ensemble determined by the initial conservation variables.
We present a constructive derivation of a time-dependent deformation functional theory---a collective variable approach to the nonequilibrium quantum many-body problem. It is shown that the motion of infinitesimal fluid elements (i.e., a set of Lagrangian trajectories) in an interacting quantum system is governed by a closed hydrodynamics equation with the stress force being a universal functional of Green's deformation tensor gij. Since the Lagrangian trajectories uniquely determine the current density, this approach can be also viewed as a representation of the time-dependent current-density functional theory. To derive the above theory, we separate a ``convective'' and a ``relative'' motions of particles by reformulating the many-body problem in a comoving Lagrangian frame. Then, we prove that a properly defined many-body wave function (and thus any observable) in the comoving frame is a universal functional of the deformation tensor. Both the hydrodynamic and the Kohn-Sham formulations of the theory are presented. In the Kohn-Sham formulation, we derive a few exact representations of the exchange-correlation potentials, and discuss their implication for construction of nonadiabatic approximations. We also discuss a relation of the present approach to a recent continuum mechanics of the incompressible quantum Hall liquids.
Abstract Density functional theory (DFT) is usually formulated in terms of the electron density as a function of position n(r). Here we discuss an alternative formulation of DFT in terms of the orbital occupation numbers {n α } associated with a local-orbital orthonormal basis set {ϕ α }. First, we discuss how the building blocks of DFT, namely the Hohenberg–Kohn theorems, the Levy–Lieb approach and the Kohn–Sham method, can be adapted for a description in terms of {n α }. In particular, the total energy is now a function of {n α }, E[{n α }], and a Kohn–Sham-like Hamiltonian is derived introducing the effects of the electron–electron interactions via effective potentials, { V α eff = ∂ E e e [ { n β } ] / ∂ n α } . In a second step we consider the Hartree and exchange energies and discuss how to describe them, in the spirit of a DFT approach, in terms of the orbital occupation numbers. In this contribution special attention is paid to the description of the (intra-atomic) correlation energy and corresponding correlation potentials {V corr,α }. For this purpose, a model system is analyzed in detail, whereby an atomic Hamiltonian interacts with the environment via a simplified model; the use of this model allows us to obtain the correlation energy and potentials (in terms of {n α }) for different cases corresponding to low, intermediate and high electron correlations.