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The Journal of Chemical Physics

Analytical gradients of variational reduced-density-matrix and wavefunction-based methods from an overlap-reweighted semidefinite program

Anthony W. Schlimgen, David A. Mazziotti

Published Oct 28, 2018• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Analytical gradients of variational two-electron reduced-density matrix (2-RDM) methods are derived by transforming the atomic-orbital reduced-density matrices to remove the dependence of the N-representability conditions on the orbital-overlap matrix. The transformation, performed through a Cholesky decomposition of the geminal-overlap matrix, generates a Hellmann-Feynman-like expression for the gradient that only depends on the derivative of the transformed reduced Hamiltonian matrix. The formulation is applicable not only to the variational 2-RDM method but also to variational wavefunction methods like the full configuration interaction and complete active-space self-consistent-field. To illustrate, we apply the analytical gradients to perform geometry optimizations on several transition metal complexes, octahedral and trigonal prismatic CrF6 as well as the (ethylene-1,2-dithiolato)nickel, or Ni(edt)2, complex.

DOI
10.1063/1.5043104

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Analytical gradients of variational two-electron reduced-density matrix (2-RDM) methods are derived by transforming the atomic-orbital reduced-density matrices to remove the dependence of the N-representability conditions on the orbital-overlap matrix. The transformation, performed through a Cholesky decomposition of the geminal-overlap matrix, generates a Hellmann-Feynman-like expression for the gradient that only depends on the derivative of the transformed reduced Hamiltonian matrix. The formulation is applicable not only to the variational 2-RDM method but also to variational wavefunction methods like the full configuration interaction and complete active-space self-consistent-field. To illustrate, we apply the analytical gradients to perform geometry optimizations on several transition metal complexes, octahedral and trigonal prismatic CrF6 as well as the (ethylene-1,2-dithiolato)nickel, or Ni(edt)2, complex.
Molecular systems in chemistry often have wave functions with substantial contributions from two-or-more electronic configurations. Because traditional complete-active-space self-consistent-field (CASSCF) methods scale exponentially with the number N of active electrons, their applicability is limited to small active spaces. In this paper we develop an active-space variational two-electron reduced-density-matrix (2-RDM) method in which the expensive diagonalization is replaced by a variational 2-RDM calculation where the 2-RDM is constrained by approximate N-representability conditions. Optimization of the constrained 2-RDM is accomplished by large-scale semidefinite programming [Mazziotti, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 213001 (2004)]. Because the computational cost of the active-space 2-RDM method scales polynomially as r(a)(6) where r(a) is the number of active orbitals, the method can be applied to treat active spaces that are too large for conventional CASSCF. The active-space 2-RDM method performs two steps: (i) variational calculation of the 2-RDM in the active space and (ii) optimization of the active orbitals by Jacobi rotations. For large basis sets this two-step 2-RDM method is more efficient than the one-step, low-rank variational 2-RDM method [Gidofalvi and Mazziotti, J. Chem. Phys. 127, 244105 (2007)]. Applications are made to HF, H(2)O, and N(2) as well as n-acene chains for n=2-8. When n>4, the acenes cannot be treated by conventional CASSCF methods; for example, when n=8, CASSCF requires optimization over approximately 1.47x10(17) configuration state functions. The natural occupation numbers of the n-acenes show the emergence of bi- and polyradical character with increasing chain length.
Molecular two-electron reduced density matrices (2-RDMs) are computed variationally without the many-electron wave function by constraining the 2-RDM with a set of three-particle NNN-representability conditions known as three-positivity conditions. These constraints restrict four distinct three-particle probability distributions, which can be defined for any NNN-particle system, to be nonnegative. The variational calculation of the 2-RDM with full three-positivity conditions is implemented with the first-order semidefinite programming algorithm [D.A. Mazziotti, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 213001 (2004)]. We also derive and implement a generalization of the T2{T}_{2}T2​ representability condition, which is a subset of the three-positivity conditions. Energies and 2-RDMs are computed for several molecules as well as the nitrogen molecule at both equilibrium and nonequilibrium geometries. The ground-state energies for nitrogen are within 0.0015a.u.0.0015\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{a.u.}0.0015a.u. of the values from full configuration interaction at all internuclear distances.
Variational reduced-density-matrix theory is applied to calculating the ground-state energy and two-electron reduced density matrices (2-RDMs) of the one-dimensional Hubbard model for a range of interaction strengths. The 2-RDM is constrained to represent an NNN-particle wave function by two sets of NNN-representability conditions, known as the 2- and partial 3-positivity conditions. Variational optimization of the energy with the 2-RDM constrained by NNN-representability conditions is performed using a first-order semidefinite-programming algorithm that was developed for treating atoms and molecules [D. A. Mazziotti, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 213001 (2004)]. Accurate energies for a broad range of interaction strengths indicate that the variational 2-RDM method is a valuable tool for studying strongly correlated electrons.
The variational two-electron reduced-density-matrix (2-RDM) method allows for the computation of accurate ground-state energies and 2-RDMs of atoms and molecules without the explicit construction of an N-electron wave function. While previous work on variational 2-RDM theory has focused on calculating full configuration-interaction energies, this work presents the first application toward approximating multiconfiguration self-consistent-field (MCSCF) energies via low-rank restrictions on the 1- and 2-RDMs. The 2-RDM method with two- or three-particle N-representability conditions reduces the exponential active-space scaling of MCSCF methods to a polynomial scaling. Because the first-order algorithm [Mazziotti, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 213001 (2004)] represents each form of the 1- and 2-RDMs by a matrix factorization, the RDMs are readily defined to have a low rank rather than a full rank by setting the matrix factors to be rectangular rather than square. Results for the potential energy surfaces of hydrogen fluoride, water, and the nitrogen molecule show that the low-rank 2-RDM method yields accurate approximations to the MCSCF energies. We also compute the energies along the symmetric stretch of a 20-atom hydrogen chain where traditional MCSCF calculations, requiring more than 17x10(9) determinants in the active space, could not be performed.
The ground-state energy and properties of any many-electron atom or molecule may be rigorously computed by variationally computing the two-electron reduced density matrix rather than the many-electron wavefunction. While early attempts fifty years ago to compute the ground-state 2-RDM directly were stymied because the 2-RDM must be constrained to represent an N-electron wavefunction, recent advances in theory and optimization have made direct computation of the 2-RDM possible. The constraints in the variational calculation of the 2-RDM require a special optimization known as a semidefinite programming. Development of first-order semidefinite programming for the 2-RDM method has reduced the computational costs of the calculation by orders of magnitude [Mazziotti, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93 (2004) 213001]. The variational 2-RDM approach is effective at capturing multi-reference correlation effects that are especially important at non-equilibrium molecular geometries. Recent work on 2-RDM methods will be reviewed and illustrated with particular emphasis on the importance of advances in large-scale semidefinite programming.
The computation of strongly correlated quantum systems is challenging because of its potentially exponential scaling in the number of electron configurations. Variational calculation of the two-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM) without the many-electron wave function exploits the pairwise nature of the electronic Coulomb interaction to compute a lower bound on the ground-state energy with polynomial computational scaling. Recently, a dual-cone formulation of the variational 2-RDM calculation was shown to generate the ground-state energy, albeit not the 2-RDM, at a substantially reduced computational cost, especially for higher NNN-representability conditions such as the T2 constraint. Here we generalize the dual-cone variational 2-RDM method to compute not only the ground-state energy but also the 2-RDM. The central result is that we can compute the 2-RDM from a generalization of the Hellmann-Feynman theorem. Specifically, we prove that in the Lagrangian formulation of the dual-cone optimization the 2-RDM is the Lagrange multiplier. We apply the method to computing the energies and properties of strongly correlated electrons---including atomic charges, electron densities, dipole moments, and orbital occupations---in an illustrative hydrogen chain and the nitrogen-fixation catalyst FeMoco. The dual variational computation of the 2-RDM with T2 or higher NNN-representability conditions provides a polynomially scaling approach to strongly correlated molecules and materials with significant applications in atomic and molecular and condensed-matter chemistry and physics.