The auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) method is a general numerical method for correlated many-electron systems, which is being increasingly applied in lattice models, atoms, molecules, and solids. Here, we introduce the theory and algorithm of the method specialized for real materials and present several recent developments. We give a systematic exposition of the key steps of AFQMC, closely tracking the framework of a modern software library we are developing. The building of a Monte Carlo Hamiltonian, projecting to the ground state, sampling two-body operators, phaseless approximation, and measuring ground state properties are discussed in detail. An advanced implementation for multi-determinant trial wave functions is described, which dramatically speeds up the algorithm and reduces the memory cost. We propose a self-consistent constraint for real materials, and discuss two flavors for its realization, either by coupling the AFQMC calculation to an effective independent-electron calculation or via the natural orbitals of the computed one-body density matrix.
Dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) is one of the most widely-used methods to treat accurately electron correlation effects in ab-initio real material calculations. Many modern large-scale implementations of DMFT in electronic structure codes involve solving a quantum impurity model with a continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo (CT-QMC) solver [Rubtsov et al., Phys. Rev. B 72, 035122 (2005); Werner et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 076405 (2006); Werner and Millis, Phys. Rev. B 74, 155107 (2006); Gull et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 83, 349 (2011)]. The main advantage of CT-QMC is that, unlike standard quantum Monte Carlo approaches, it is able to generate the local Green's functions $G(\ensuremath{\tau})$ of the correlated system on an arbitrarily fine imaginary time $\ensuremath{\tau}$ grid, and is free of any systematic errors. In this work, we extend a hybrid QMC solver proposed by Khatami et al. [Phys. Rev. E 81, 056703 (2010)] and Rost et al. [Phys. Rev. E 87, 053305 (2013)] to a multiorbital context. This has the advantage of enabling impurity solver QMC calculations to scale linearly with inverse temperature $\ensuremath{\beta}$, and permit its application to
d- and
f-band materials. In addition, we present a Green's-function processing scheme which generates accurate quasicontinuous imaginary time solutions of the impurity problem which overcome errors inherent to standard QMC approaches. This solver and processing scheme are incorporated into a full DFT+DMFT calculation using the castep DFT code [Clark et al., Z. Kristallogr. 220, 567 (2005)]. Benchmark calculations for
SrVO3 properties are presented. The computational efficiency of this method is also demonstrated.