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Journal of Physics C Solid State Physics

Discontinuity of the exchange-correlation potential in density functional theory

Kurt Schönhammer, O. Gunnarsson

Published Aug 30, 1987• 60 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The question of whether the exact exchange-correlation (XC) potential in density functional theory can have discontinuities as a function of the number of electrons is discussed. For a very simple model the exact XC functional is constructed analytically using Levy's constrained-search method and shown to have a discontinuity in its derivative. Exact numerical calculations for the XC potential for a simple finite one-dimensional 'semiconductor' chain are performed. An extrapolation to infinite chain length shows the occurrence of a sizable discontinuity in certain parameter ranges, but the model has a small discontinuity for 'realistic' parameters. The question of how to calculate the value of the discontinuity for a general system is addressed using many-body theory. A formula proposed recently by other researchers is shown to be incorrect.

DOI
10.1088/0022-3719/20/24/010

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The question of whether the exact exchange-correlation (XC) potential in density functional theory can have discontinuities as a function of the number of electrons is discussed. For a very simple model the exact XC functional is constructed analytically using Levy's constrained-search method and shown to have a discontinuity in its derivative. Exact numerical calculations for the XC potential for a simple finite one-dimensional 'semiconductor' chain are performed. An extrapolation to infinite chain length shows the occurrence of a sizable discontinuity in certain parameter ranges, but the model has a small discontinuity for 'realistic' parameters. The question of how to calculate the value of the discontinuity for a general system is addressed using many-body theory. A formula proposed recently by other researchers is shown to be incorrect.
The physics of interacting many-body systems is a very complex and challenging subject. Therefore one in general needs to use simplified models and approximate methods for studying these systems theoretically. In this work we study the exchange-correlation (xc) potential for the Hubbard-Holstein (HH) model for the application of Density Functional Theory (DFT) to the same. The Hohenberg-Kohn theorem and the two sets of Kohn-Sham equations are derived for the HH-model extending a procedure outlined in previous work. The xc-potentials for the fermions and bosons respectively are then derived analytically as functions of the density nnn and phononic displacement xxx for a single HH-site in contact with a heat bath, generalizing the procedure for the pure Hubbard model. The potential for the HH-site is found to have a smaller gap at half filling than for the Hubbard model, due to a rescaling of the effective electron-electron interaction. It also has an additional term linear in (n−1)(n-1)(n−1). The xc-potentials are used to study two simple systems, an Andersson impurity dimer and a four-site chain of HH-sites. The results are compared to those of an exact solution and to the Hartree-Fock (HF) solution. For the dimer the DFT-method performs consistently better than the HF-method, while the results for the chain are more ambiguous. However, the central result of this thesis is to produce xc-potentials for an infinitely coordinated Bethe lattice, using Dynamical Mean Field Theory (DMFT). The potentials for a small but representative set of interaction parameters are presented and compared to the analytical potential. The potentials are similar in that they do not exhibit much structure, and they behave very similarly far from half filling. Close to half filling they show more differences, as the analytic potential is always discontinuous around half filling while the potential attained via DMFT is only discontinuous for large electron-electron interactions.
The derivative discontinuity of the exchange-correlation (xc) energy at an integer particle number is a property of the exact, unknown xc functional of density functional theory (DFT) which is absent in many popular local and semilocal approximations. In lattice DFT, approximations exist which exhibit a discontinuity in the xc potential at half-filling. However, due to convergence problems of the Kohn-Sham (KS) self-consistency cycle, the use of these functionals is mostly restricted to situations where the local density is away from half-filling. Here a numerical scheme for the self-consistent solution of the lattice KS Hamiltonian with a local xc potential with rapid (or quasidiscontinuous) density dependence is suggested. The problem is formulated in terms of finite-temperature DFT where the discontinuity in the xc potential emerges naturally in the limit of zero temperature. A simple parametrization is suggested for the xc potential of the uniform one-dimensional (1D) Hubbard model at finite temperature which is obtained from the solution of the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz. The feasibility of the numerical scheme is demonstrated by application to a model of fermionic atoms in a harmonic trap. The corresponding density profile exhibits a plateau of integer occupation at low temperatures which melts away for higher temperatures.
For every electronic many-body Hamiltonian with a one-body potential that goes to zero at infinity, there is a maximum number of bound electrons (Jmax{J}_{\mathrm{max}}Jmax​) that can be sustained in the system with an infinite lifetime. At this integer Jmax{J}_{\mathrm{max}}Jmax​, the derivative discontinuity in the exact energy of ensemble density functional theory (DFT) is ill defined. However, we investigate the derivative discontinuity of the energy within the framework of density functional resonance theory [D. L. Whitenack and A. Wasserman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 163002 (2011)], which reduces to ground-state DFT as a coordinate scaling parameter is taken to zero, and find that the exact exchange-correlation potential experiences discontinuous jumps at integer particle numbers, including Jmax{J}_{\mathrm{max}}Jmax​. For integers below Jmax{J}_{\mathrm{max}}Jmax​ the jump is purely real because of the real shift in the chemical potential. At Jmax{J}_{\mathrm{max}}Jmax​, the jump has a nonzero imaginary component reflecting the metastability of the system upon addition of one more electron. In addition, the magnitude of the derivative discontinuity at Jmax{J}_{\mathrm{max}}Jmax​ is larger than would have been expected by simply setting the affinity to zero.
We illustrate the potential of Time Dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFT) for describing the nonequilibrium behavior of strongly correlated (lattice) models. Starting from an exact time-evolution of the many-body wavefunction, we determine, via reverse engineering, the exact exchange correlation (xc) potential vxcv_{xc}vxc​ for small Hubbard chains of different lengths and electron fillings and exposed to time-dependent perturbations. We compare some of the exact results to those of adiabatic-like treatments, in order to extract some of the properties that approximate xc potentials should have. Finally, we provide details of work in progress and future directions.
We illustrate the scope of time-dependent density-functional theory for strongly correlated (lattice) models out of equilibrium. Using the exact many-body time evolution, we reverse engineer the exact exchange correlation (xc) potential v_(xc) for small Hubbard chains exposed to time-dependent fields. We introduce an adiabatic local density approximation to v_(xc) for the 1D Hubbard model and compare it to exact results, to gain insight about approximate xc potentials. Finally, we provide some remarks on the v-representability for the 1D Hubbard model.
A density-functional theory for many-body lattice models is considered in which the single-particle density matrix ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{\mathrm{ij}}$ is the basic variable. Eigenvalue equations are derived for solving Levy's constrained search of the interaction energy functional $W[{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{\mathrm{ij}}].$ $W[{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{\mathrm{ij}}]$ is expressed as the sum of Hartree-Fock energy ${E}_{\mathrm{HF}}[{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{\mathrm{ij}}]$ and the correlation energy ${E}_{C}[{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{\mathrm{ij}}].$ Exact results are obtained for ${E}_{C}({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12})$ of the Hubbard model on various periodic lattices, where ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{\mathrm{ij}}={\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}$ for all nearest neighbors i and j. The functional dependence of ${E}_{C}({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12})$ is analyzed by varying the number of sites Na,{N}_{a},Na​, band filling Ne,{N}_{e},Ne​, and lattice structure. The infinite one-dimensional chain and one-, two-, or three-dimensional finite clusters with periodic boundary conditions are considered. The properties of ${E}_{C}({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12})$ are discussed in the limits of weak $({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}\ensuremath{\simeq}{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}^{0})$ and strong $({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}\ensuremath{\simeq}{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}^{\ensuremath{\infty}})$ electronic correlations, and in the crossover region $({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}^{\ensuremath{\infty}}<~{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}<~{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}^{0}).$ Using an appropriate scaling we observe that ${\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{C}{(g}_{12}{)=E}_{C}{/E}_{\mathrm{HF}}$ has a pseudo-universal behavior as a function of ${g}_{12}=({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}^{\ensuremath{\infty}})/({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}^{0}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12}^{\ensuremath{\infty}}).$ The fact that ${\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{C}{(g}_{12})$ depends weakly on Na,{N}_{a},Na​, Ne,{N}_{e},Ne​, and lattice structure suggests that the correlation energy of extended systems could be obtained quite accurately from finite-cluster calculations. Finally, the behaviors of ${E}_{C}({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{12})$ for repulsive (U>0)(U>0)(U>0) and attractive (U<0)(U<0)(U<0) interactions are contrasted.