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
N-particle wave function by two sets of
N-representability conditions, known as the 2- and partial 3-positivity conditions. Variational optimization of the energy with the 2-RDM constrained by
N-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.
We calculate the photoemission spectral function of the one-dimensional Hubbard model away from half filling using the dynamical density-matrix renormalization group method. An approach for calculating momentum-dependent quantities in finite open chains is presented. Comparison with exact Bethe ansatz results demonstrates the unprecedented accuracy of our method. Our results show that the photoemission spectrum of the quasi-one-dimensional conductor TTF-TCNQ provides evidence for spin-charge separation on the scale of the conduction bandwidth.