A density functional representation of quantum chemistry. II. Local quantum field theories of molecular matter in terms of the charge density operator do not work
Abstract A comprehensive review of the attempts to rephrase molecular quantum mechanics in terms of the particle density operator and the current density or phase density operator is given. All pertinent investigations which have come to our attention suffer from severe mathematical inconsistencies and are not adequate to the few‐body problem of quantum chemistry. The origin of the failure of these attempts is investigated and it is shown that a realization of a local quantum field theory of molecular matter in terms of observables would presuppose the solution of many highly nontrivial mathematical problems.
Abstract A comprehensive review of the attempts to rephrase molecular quantum mechanics in terms of the particle density operator and the current density or phase density operator is given. All pertinent investigations which have come to our attention suffer from severe mathematical inconsistencies and are not adequate to the few‐body problem of quantum chemistry. The origin of the failure of these attempts is investigated and it is shown that a realization of a local quantum field theory of molecular matter in terms of observables would presuppose the solution of many highly nontrivial mathematical problems.
Abstract A mathematically rigorous reformulation of molecular quantum mechanics in terms of the particle density operator and a canonically conjugated phase field is given. Using a momentum cutoff, it is shown that the usual molecular Hamiltonian can be expressed in terms of the particle density operator and a rigorously defined phase operator. It is shown that this Hamiltonian converges strongly to the cutoff‐free Hamiltonian. In spite of the fact that this Hamiltonian is of second order in the phase operators, all hitherto published expressions are not correct. Unfortunately, the correct formulation destroys the intuitive appeal of using the particle density operator as a coordinate for the many‐body problems of quantum chemistry. Unless somebody provides an essential new and clever idea, we propose to resist the fascination of a local quantum field theory of molecular matter in terms of the particle density operator.
Abstract The molecular N‐electron problem is formulated in terms of the particle density 𝔔(r) = ∑σ(r − qn) and its canonically conjugated field. Weyl's representation of the canonical commutation relations is used and a characteristic functional of the molecular system is introduced as the expectation value of Weyl's functional exp {i(α, Q) + i(β, P)}. The Hamiltonian equation of motion for the characteristic functional is derived and its cumulant approximation is discussed. The first paper is restricted to a general discussion, independent of a special choice of the Hamiltonian. The density functional representation may be considered as a step towards a formulation of a renormalized quantum chemistry. The lowest order cumulants of the characteristic functional are accessible to actual precision measurements; on the other hand, most experiments are correctly represented by a characteristic functional of the Gaussian type. The significance of the higher order correlations is neither theoretically nor experimentally disclosed yet, their possible importance for biological systems is mentioned, and the question is raised of how far quantum mechanics is empirically confirmed for extremely complex systems.
Abstract The present day quantum chemistry is mathematically based on von NEUMANN'S formulation of quantum mechanics and therefore not able to deal correctly with anomal quantum states. A general theory of large molecules and large molecular systems has to be founded on quantum field theory allowing for inequivalent irreducible representations. It is proposed to formulate quantum chemistry in the framework of the B*‐algebra of the observables. The paradox of molecular systems having an infinite number of degrees of freedom is discussed, and the possible significance of anomal molecular quantum states for molecular biology is pointed out.
Since the early days of quantum mechanics, the wave function theory has proven to be very successful in describing many different quantum processes and phenomena. However, in many problems of quantum chemistry and solid-state physics, where the dimensionality of the systems studied is relatively high, ab initio calculations of the structure of atoms, molecules, clusters, and crystals, and their interactions are very often prohibitive. Hence, alternative formulations based on the direct use of the probability density, gathered under what is generally known as the density matrix theory [1], were also developed since the very beginning of the new mechanics. The independent electron approximation or Thomas-Fermi model, and the Hartree and Hartree-Fock approaches are former statistical models developed in that direction [2]. These models can be considered direct predecessors of the more recent density functional theory (DFT) [3], whose principles were established by Hohenberg, Kohn, and Sham [4,5] in the mid-1960s. According to this theory, the fundamental physical information about a many-body system is provided by single-particle densities in a three-dimensional space, which are obtained variationally within a time-independent framework. When compared with other previous formalisms, DFT presents two clear advantages: (1) it is able to treat many-body problems in a sufficiently accurate way and (2) it is computationally simple. This explains why it is one of the most widely used theories to deal with electronic structure-the electronic ground-state energy as a function of the position of the atomic nuclei determines molecular structures and solids, providing at the same time the forces acting on the atomic nuclei when they are not at their equilibrium positions. At present, DFT is used routinely to solve many problems in gas phase and condensed matter. Furthermore, it has made possible the development of accurate molecular dynamics schemes in which the forces are evaluated quantum mechanically ‘‘on the fly.’’ Nonetheless, DFT is a fundamental tool provided the systems studied are relatively large; for small systems, standard methods based on the use of the wave function render quite accurate results [6]. Moreover, it is also worth stressing that all practical applications of DFT rely on essentially uncontrolled approximations [7] (e.g., the local density approximation [4,5], the local spin-density approximation, or generalized gradient approximations [8]), and therefore the validity of DFT is conditioned to its capability to provide fairly good values of the experimental data.
Quantum chemistry focuses on modelling and simulating the behaviour of molecular systems using the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. However, the underlying equations, such as the Schrödinger equation for computing the ground state of N electrons, which is a partial differential equation defined on \mathbb{R}^{3N} , suffer from the curse of dimensionality. As a result, simulating even moderately sized molecules demands advanced techniques in analysis, approximation and reduced-order modelling for overcoming the naive computational complexity. In this workshop, the rapidly growing mathematical community working in the field together with several quantum chemists and physicists were gathered to discuss recent advances in areas such as (1) the mathematical and numerical analysis of standard models used in the field, including Density Functional Theory, Coupled Cluster, and the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (2) the development of efficient numerical methods, relying e.g. on the development of error bounds and (3) the opportunities of recent data-driven methods towards the approximation of wavefunctions or density matrices.
Quantum chemistry focuses on modelling and simulating the behaviour of molecular systems using the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. However, the underlying equations, such as the Schrödinger equation for computing the ground state of N electrons, which is a partial differential equation defined on R3N, suffer from the curse of dimensionality. As a result, simulating even moderately sized molecules demands advanced techniques in analysis, approximation and reduced-order modelling for overcoming the naive computational complexity. In this workshop, the rapidly growing mathematical community working in the field together with several quantum chemists and physicists were gathered to discuss recent advances in areas such as (1) the mathematical and numerical analysis of standard models used in the field, including Density Functional Theory, Coupled Cluster, and the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (2) the development of efficient numerical methods, relying e.g. on the development of error bounds and (3) the opportunities of recent data-driven methods towards the approximation of wavefunctions or density matrices.