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Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Two-electron reduced density matrix method for the electronic structure of correlated materials

Anna O. Schouten, Simon Ewing, David A. Mazziotti

Published Nov 12, 2025• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The last several decades have seen significant advances in the theoretical modeling of materials within the fields of solid-state physics and materials science, but many methods commonly applied to this problem struggle to capture strong electron correlation accurately. Recent widespread interest in quantum materials---where strong correlation plays a crucial role in the quantum effects governing their behavior---further highlights the need for theoretical methods capable of rigorously treating such correlation. Here, we present a periodic generalization of variational two-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM) theory, a bootstrapping-type method that minimizes the ground-state energy as a functional of the 2-RDM without relying on the wave function. The 2-RDM is computed directly by semidefinite programming with $N$-representability conditions, ensuring accurate treatment of strongly correlated electronic systems. By exploiting translational symmetry, we significantly reduce computational scaling, enabling applications to realistic materials-scale systems. Additionally, we introduce an alternative to conventional energy band structures: natural-orbital occupation-number bands, which, being independent of mean-field assumptions, offer deeper insights into electron correlation effects. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by applying the theory to hydrogen chains, molybdenum disulfide, and nickel oxide, showing that natural-orbital occupation bands correctly capture electronic character in regimes where density functional theory fails. This work represents a major step toward accurately describing the electronic structure of quantum materials using reduced density matrices rather than wave functions.

DOI
10.1103/kwxs-xnhv

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The last several decades have seen significant advances in the theoretical modeling of materials within the fields of solid-state physics and materials science, but many methods commonly applied to this problem struggle to capture strong electron correlation accurately. Recent widespread interest in quantum materials---where strong correlation plays a crucial role in the quantum effects governing their behavior---further highlights the need for theoretical methods capable of rigorously treating such correlation. Here, we present a periodic generalization of variational two-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM) theory, a bootstrapping-type method that minimizes the ground-state energy as a functional of the 2-RDM without relying on the wave function. The 2-RDM is computed directly by semidefinite programming with NNN-representability conditions, ensuring accurate treatment of strongly correlated electronic systems. By exploiting translational symmetry, we significantly reduce computational scaling, enabling applications to realistic materials-scale systems. Additionally, we introduce an alternative to conventional energy band structures: natural-orbital occupation-number bands, which, being independent of mean-field assumptions, offer deeper insights into electron correlation effects. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by applying the theory to hydrogen chains, molybdenum disulfide, and nickel oxide, showing that natural-orbital occupation bands correctly capture electronic character in regimes where density functional theory fails. This work represents a major step toward accurately describing the electronic structure of quantum materials using reduced density matrices rather than wave functions.
The last several decades have seen significant advances in the theoretical modeling of materials within the fields of solid-state physics and materials science, but many methods commonly applied to this problem struggle to capture strong electron correlation accurately. Recent widespread interest in quantum materials -- where strong correlation plays a crucial role in the quantum effects governing their behavior -- further highlights the need for theoretical methods capable of rigorously treating such correlation. Here, we present a periodic generalization of variational two-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM) theory, a bootstrapping-type method that minimizes the ground-state energy as a functional of the 2-RDM without relying on the wavefunction. The 2-RDM is computed directly by semidefinite programming with NNN-representability conditions, ensuring accurate treatment of strongly correlated electronic systems. By exploiting translational symmetry, we significantly reduce computational scaling, enabling applications to realistic materials-scale systems. Additionally, we introduce an alternative to conventional energy band structures: natural-orbital occupation-number bands, which, being independent of mean-field assumptions, offer deeper insights into electron correlation effects. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by applying the theory to hydrogen chains, molybdenum disulfide, and nickel oxide, showing that natural-orbital occupation bands correctly capture electronic character in regimes where density functional theory fails. This work represents a major step toward accurately describing the electronic structure of quantum materials using reduced density matrices rather than wavefunctions.
Molecular periodic systems have the challenge of not only representing an infinite, albeit periodically repeating, molecule but also treating the strong electron correlation that emerges in such systems. Many post-Hartree-Fock methods that are efficient in moderately correlated molecules often fail to describe strongly correlated electrons and their properties in periodic systems. Here we develop and apply an electronic structure approach to periodic systems based on the variational calculation of the two-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM). The variational 2-RDM method calculates a lower bound to the ground-state energy of a molecular periodic system without computation or storage of its many-electron wave function. The 2-RDM is constrained by NNN-representability conditions that are necessary for it to represent at least one NNN-electron density matrix---conditions that allow it to treat strongly correlated systems. Two periodic systems are treated to demonstrate the methodology: (i) a metallic hydrogen chain and (ii) a strongly correlated acene chain. In the hydrogen chains the 2-RDM theory describes the strongly correlated Mott metal-to-insulator transition while in acene chains it describes the emergence of polyradical character with increasing chain length. The methodology is applicable to treating strong electron correlation in more general periodic molecules and materials.
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.
Strong electron correlation in materials is explored within a class of model Hamiltonians that treat only pair interactions between electrons. The model is unique among typical spin Hamiltonians in that it does not have an effective mean-field reference wave function. The ground-state wave functions from all Hamiltonians in the model have the same one-electron reduced density matrix (1-RDM); consequently, one-electron theories such as the Hartree–Fock and density functional theories are inapplicable. In contrast, the ground-state two-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM) has a one-to-one mapping to the ground-state wave function. For a range of lattices including linear, ladder, and square topologies, we variationally compute the 2-RDM subject to constraints, known as N -representability conditions, that are necessary for the 2-RDM to represent an N -electron ensemble density matrix. We find that for all model Hamiltonians the 2-RDM is accurately computed as long as the D, Q, and G N -representability conditions are supplemented with the T 2 condition. Energies, orbital and geminal occupation numbers, and correlation functions are computed. The model has applications to superconductivity as well as more general pairing phenomena in electronic systems. Effective methods are needed to treat strong electron correlation arising in the study of materials including the study of high-temperature superconductivity and phase transitions.
Variational minimization of the ground-state energy as a function of the two-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM), constrained by necessary NNN-representability conditions, provides a polynomial-scaling approach to studying strongly correlated molecules without computing the many-electron wave function. Here we introduce a route to enhancing necessary conditions for NNN representability through rank restriction of the 2-RDM. Rather than adding computationally more expensive NNN-representability conditions, we directly enhance the accuracy of two-particle (2-positivity) conditions through rank restriction, which removes degrees of freedom in the 2-RDM that are not sufficiently constrained. We select the rank of the particle-hole 2-RDM by deriving the ranks associated with model wave functions, including both mean-field and antisymmetrized geminal power (AGP) wave functions. Because the 2-positivity conditions are exact for quantum systems with AGP ground states, the rank of the particle-hole 2-RDM from the AGP ansatz provides a minimum for its value in variational 2-RDM calculations of general quantum systems. To implement the rank-restricted conditions, we extend a first-order algorithm for large-scale semidefinite programming. The rank-restricted conditions significantly improve the accuracy of the energies; for example, the percentages of correlation energies recovered for HF, CO, and N2{}_{2}2​ improve from 115.2%, 121.7%, and 121.5% without rank restriction to 97.8%, 101.1%, and 100.0% with rank restriction. Similar results are found at both equilibrium and nonequilibrium geometries. While more accurate, the rank-restricted NNN-representability conditions are less expensive computationally than the full-rank conditions.
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.