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Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

Time dependent reduced density matrix functional theory at strong correlation: insights from a two-site Anderson impurity model

S. Di Sabatino, Claudio Verdozzi, Pina Romaniello

Published Jan 1, 2021• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The one-body density matrix has recently attracted considerable attention as a promising key quantity for the description of systems out of equilibrium. Its time evolution is given in terms of the two-body density matrix, and thus the central challenge is to find approximations to the latter. An extra layer of difficulty is added when dealing with strong electron correlations. In this work, we explore precisely this regime by looking at the two-site Anderson impurity model as a case study. To address the system's dynamics, we use an adiabatic approximation based on the exact ground-state two-body density matrix. We find that this adiabatic extension does not reproduce the exact results even for a slow switch-on of the external perturbation, and we trace back this behavior to the lack of an accurate imaginary part of the adiabatic approximation to the two-body density matrix. The attempt to restore an approximate imaginary part through a Hilbert transform of the real part works well only for very short times, but quickly deteriorates for longer times, with the one-body density matrix being pushed out of its N-representability domain. Our results thus pose an important constraint on practical prescriptions to perform the time evolution of the one-body density matrix.

DOI
10.1039/d1cp01742j

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The one-body density matrix has recently attracted considerable attention as a promising key quantity for the description of systems out of equilibrium. Its time evolution is given in terms of the two-body density matrix, and thus the central challenge is to find approximations to the latter. An extra layer of difficulty is added when dealing with strong electron correlations. In this work, we explore precisely this regime by looking at the two-site Anderson impurity model as a case study. To address the system's dynamics, we use an adiabatic approximation based on the exact ground-state two-body density matrix. We find that this adiabatic extension does not reproduce the exact results even for a slow switch-on of the external perturbation, and we trace back this behavior to the lack of an accurate imaginary part of the adiabatic approximation to the two-body density matrix. The attempt to restore an approximate imaginary part through a Hilbert transform of the real part works well only for very short times, but quickly deteriorates for longer times, with the one-body density matrix being pushed out of its N-representability domain. Our results thus pose an important constraint on practical prescriptions to perform the time evolution of the one-body density matrix.
With the aim of describing real-time electron dynamics, we introduce an adiabatic approximation for the equation of motion of the one-body reduced density matrix (one-matrix). The eigenvalues of the one-matrix, which represent the occupation numbers of single-particle orbitals, are obtained from the constrained minimization of the instantaneous ground-state energy functional rather than from their dynamical equations. The performance of the approximation vis-\`a-vis nonadiabatic effects is assessed in real-time simulations of a two-site Hubbard model. Due to Landau-Zener-type transitions, the system evolves into a nonstationary state with persistent oscillations in the observables. The amplitude of the oscillations displays a strongly nonmonotonic dependence on the strength of the electron-electron interaction and the rate of variation of the external potential. We interpret an associated resonance behavior in the phase of the oscillations in terms of ``scattering'' with spectator energy levels. To clarify the motivation for the minimization condition, we derive a sequence of energy functionals Ev(n){E}_{v}^{(n)}Ev(n)​, for which the corresponding sequence of minimizing one-matrices is asymptotic to the exact one-matrix in the adiabatic limit.
We study time-dependent electron transport through an Anderson model. The electronic interactions on the impurity site are included via the self-energy approximations at Hartree-Fock (HF), second Born (2B), GW, and TTT-matrix levels as well as within a time-dependent density functional (TDDFT) scheme based on the adiabatic Bethe-ansatz local density approximation (ABALDA) for the exchange-correlation potential. The Anderson model is driven out of equilibrium by applying a bias to the leads, and its nonequilibrium dynamics is determined by real-time propagation. The time-dependent currents and densities are compared to benchmark results obtained with the time-dependent density matrix renormalization group (tDMRG) method. Many-body perturbation theory beyond HF gives results in close agreement with tDMRG, especially within the 2B approximation. We find that the TDDFT approach with the ABALDA approximation produces accurate results for the densities on the impurity site, but overestimates the currents. This problem is found to have its origin in an overestimation of the lead densities, which indicates that the exchange-correlation potential must attain nonzero values in the leads.
This dissertation investigates the possibilities and limitations of time-dependent many-body perturbation theory by studying small Hubbard clusters for which the exact solution is available. The first part of the thesis is comprised of a short introduction to the concepts and methodologies used. The second part consists of an review of the main findings of the thesis and a short summary of four original papers. In paper I we study the dynamics of short Hubbard chains within many-body perturbation theory and compare to the exact solution. The main outcomes are that the T-matrix approximation works well in the low filling regime and that all approximation which involve correlation effects develop an unphysical steady state. In paper II we present the methodology used in paper I. We find that the correlation-induced damping appears even in the presence of leads and that there are multiple steady and quasi steady states. In paper III we make a review of the status of time dependent density functional theory for lattice models. In particular we find that a non-perturbative adiabatic local density approximation describes strong correlations well while many-body perturbation theory accounts better for non-adiabatic effects. In paper IV we propose a method to obtain the double occupancy from the Kadanoff-Baym equations. We show that the positiveness condition may be violated in the GW or the second Born approximation but fulfiled in the T-matrix approximation. We apply this method to obtain the local entanglement entropy.
Time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) provides a successful approach to calculate excitation energies of atomic and molecular systems. In part I of this work we present a double-pole approximation (DPA) to the response equations of TDDFT. The double-pole approximation provides an exact description of systems with two strongly coupled excitations which are isolated from the rest of the spectrum. In contrast to the traditional single- pole approximation of TDDFT the DPA also yields corrections to the Kohn-Sham oscillator strengths. Several critical pole separations can be identified, e.g. we find that the pole coupling can cause transitions to vanish entirely from the optical spectrum. We also demonstrate how to invert the double-pole solution which allows us to predict matrix elements of the exchange- correlation kernel fxc from experimental input. This can serve as benchmark for the construction of future approximations for the kernel fxc. Reduced density matrix functional theory (RDMFT) has emerged recently as promising candidate to treat strongly correlated electronic many-body systems beyond traditional density functional theory (DFT). The research within RDMFT was so far focussed on the static theory. In this work we attempt some first steps towards a time-dependent generalization of RDMFT. In part II we derive equations of motion for natural orbitals and occupation numbers. Using the equation of motion for the occupation numbers we show that an adiabatic extension of presently known ground-state functionals of static RDMFT always leads to occupation numbers which are constant in time. From the stationary conditions of the equations of motion for the N-body correlations (correlated parts of the N-body matrices) we derive a new class of ground-state functionals which can be used in static RDMFT. Applications are presented for a one-dimensional model system where the time-dependent many-body Schrödinger equation can be propagated numerically. We use optimal control theory to find optimized laser pulses for transitions in a model for atomic Helium. From the numerically exact correlated wavefunction we extract the exact time evolution of natural orbitals and occupation numbers for (i) laser-driven Helium and (ii) electron-ion scattering. Part III of this work considers time-dependent quantum transport within TDDFT. We present an algorithm for the calculation of extended eigenstates of single- particle Hamiltonians which is especially tailored to a finite-difference discretization of the Schrödinger equation. We consider the propagation of finite mesoscopic systems and demonstrate the limitations of such an approach. To overcome the shortcomings of a description of quantum transport in terms of finite systems we develop a time-propagation scheme for extended states which utilizes a mixed basis representation. Our discretization scheme allows to treat central device and lead regions on the same footing thus preventing artificial reflections at grid boundaries.
We prove that if the two-body terms in the equation of motion for the one-body reduced density matrix are approximated by ground-state functionals, the eigenvalues of the one-body reduced density matrix (occupation numbers) remain constant in time. This deficiency is related to the inability of such an approximation to account for relative phases in the two-body reduced density matrix. We derive an exact differential equation giving the functional dependence of these phases in an interacting Landau-Zener model and study their behavior in short- and long-time regimes. The phases undergo resonances whenever the occupation numbers approach the boundaries of the interval [0,1][0,1][0,1]. In the long-time regime, the occupation numbers display correlation-induced oscillations and the memory dependence of the functionals assumes a simple form.
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.