Approximate expression for the ground-state energy of the two- and three-dimensional Hubbard model at arbitrary filling obtained from dimensional scaling.

We generalize the linear discrete dimensional scaling approach for the repulsive Hubbard model to obtain a nonlinear scaling relation that yields accurate approximations to the ground-state energy in both two and three dimensions, as judged by comparison to auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) data. Predictions are made for the per-site ground-state energies in two and three dimensions for n (filling factor) and U (Coulomb interaction) values for which QMC data are currently unavailable.

Hyper-generalized-gradient functionals constructed from the Lieb-Oxford bound: implementation via local hybrids and thermochemical assessment.

In 2009 Odashima and Capelle (OC) showed a way to design a correlation-only density functional that satisfies a Lieb-Oxford bound on the correlation energy, without empirical parameters and even without additional theoretical parameters. However, they were only able to test a size-inconsistent version of it that employs total energies. Here, we show that their alternative size-consistent form that employs energy densities, when combined with exact or semilocal exchange, is a local hybrid (lh) functional. We test several variants of this nonempirical OC-lh functional on standard molecular test sets. Although no variant yields enthalpies of formation with the accuracy of the semilocal Tao-Perdew-Staroverov-Scuseria (TPSS) exchange-correlation, OC-lh correlation with exact exchange yields rather accurate energy barriers for chemical reactions. Our purpose here is not to advocate for a new density functional, but to explore a previously published idea. We also discuss the importance of near-self-consistency for fully nonlocal functionals.

Quantum mechanics in metric space: wave functions and their densities.

Hilbert space combines the properties of two different types of mathematical spaces: vector space and metric space. While the vector-space aspects are widely used, the metric-space aspects are much less exploited. Here we show that a suitable metric stratifies Fock space into concentric spheres on which maximum and minimum distances between states can be defined and geometrically interpreted. Unlike the usual Hilbert-space analysis, our results apply also to the reduced space of only ground states and to that of particle densities, which are metric, but not Hilbert, spaces. The Hohenberg-Kohn mapping between densities and ground states, which is highly complex and nonlocal in coordinate description, is found, for three different model systems, to be simple in metric space, where it becomes a monotonic and nearly linear mapping of vicinities onto vicinities.

Investigation of Self-Interaction Corrections for an Exactly Solvable Model System: Orbital Dependence and Electron Localization.

A systematic investigation of two approximate self-interaction corrections (SICs), Perdew-Zunger SIC and Lundin-Eriksson SIC, and the local-density approximation (LDA) is performed for a model Hamiltonian whose exact many-body solution and exact LDA are known. Both SICs as well as LDA are applied in the calculation of ground-state energies, ground-state densities, energy gaps, and impurity densities of one-dimensional Hubbard chains differing in size, particle number, and interaction strength. The orbital-dependent potentials arising from either SIC are treated within the optimized-effective potential method, which we reformulate for the Hubbard model. The delocalization tendency of LDA is confronted with the localization tendency of SIC. A statistical analysis of the resulting data set sheds light on the role of SIC for weakly and strongly interacting particles and allows one to assess the performance of each methodology.

Lower bounds on the exchange-correlation energy in reduced dimensions.

Bounds on the exchange-correlation energy of many-electron systems are derived and tested. By using universal scaling properties of the electron-electron interaction, we obtain the exponent of the bounds in three, two, one, and quasione dimensions. From the properties of the electron gas in the dilute regime, the tightest estimate to date is given for the numerical prefactor of the bound, which is crucial in practical applications. Numerical tests on various low-dimensional systems are in line with the bounds obtained and give evidence of an interesting dimensional crossover between two and one dimensions.

Excitation energies from ground-state density-functionals by means of generator coordinates.

The generator-coordinate method is a flexible and powerful reformulation of the variational principle. Here we show that by introducing a generator coordinate in the Kohn-Sham equation of density-functional theory, excitation energies can be obtained from ground-state density functionals. As a viability test, the method is applied to ground-state energies and various types of excited-state energies of atoms and ions from the He and the Li isoelectronic series. Results are compared to a variety of alternative DFT-based approaches to excited states, in particular time-dependent density-functional theory with exact and approximate potentials.

Physical signatures of discontinuities of the time-dependent exchange-correlation potential.

The exact exchange-correlation (XC) potential in time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) is known to develop steps and discontinuities upon change of the particle number in spatially confined regions or isolated subsystems. We demonstrate that the self-interaction corrected adiabatic local-density approximation for the XC potential has this property, using the example of electron loss of a model quantum well system. We then study the influence of the XC potential discontinuity in a real-time simulation of a dissociation process of an asymmetric double quantum well system, and show that it dramatically affects the population of the resulting isolated single quantum wells. This indicates the importance of a proper account of the discontinuities in TDDFT descriptions of ionization, dissociation or charge transfer processes.

Dependence of Response Functions and Orbital Functionals on Occupation Numbers.

Explicitly orbital-dependent approximations to the exchange-correlation energy functional of density functional theory typically not only depend on the single-particle Kohn-Sham orbitals but also on their occupation numbers in the ground-state Slater determinant. The variational calculation of the corresponding exchange-correlation potentials with the optimized effective potential (OEP) method therefore also requires a variation of the occupation numbers with respect to a variation in the effective single-particle potential, which is usually not taken into account. Here it is shown under which circumstances this procedure is justified.

Tightened Lieb-Oxford Bound for Systems of Fixed Particle Number.

The Lieb-Oxford bound is a constraint upon approximate exchange-correlation functionals. We explore a nonempirical tightening of that bound in both universal and electron number-dependent form. The test functional is PBE. Regarding both atomization energies (slightly worsened) and bond lengths (slightly improved), we find the PBE functional to be remarkably insensitive to the value of the Lieb-Oxford bound. This both rationalizes the use of the original Lieb-Oxford constant in PBE and suggests that enhancement factors more sensitive to sharpened constraints await discovery.

Entanglement in spatially inhomogeneous many-fermion systems.

We investigate entanglement of strongly interacting fermions in spatially inhomogeneous environments. To quantify entanglement in the presence of spatial inhomogeneity, we propose a local-density approximation (LDA) to the entanglement entropy, and a nested LDA scheme to evaluate the entanglement entropy on inhomogeneous density profiles. These ideas are applied to models of electrons in superlattice structures with different modulation patterns, electrons in a metallic wire in the presence of impurities, and phase-separated states in harmonically confined many-fermion systems, such as electrons in quantum dots and atoms in optical traps. We find that the entanglement entropy of inhomogeneous systems is strikingly different from that of homogeneous systems.

Generator coordinate method in time-dependent density-functional theory: memory made simple.

The generator coordinate (GC) method is a variational approach to the quantum many-body problem in which interacting many-body wave functions are constructed as superpositions of (generally nonorthogonal) eigenstates of auxiliary Hamiltonians containing a deformation parameter. This paper presents a time-dependent extension of the GC method as a new approach to improve existing approximations of the exchange-correlation (XC) potential in time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT). The time-dependent GC method is shown to be a conceptually and computationally simple tool to build memory effects into any existing adiabatic XC potential. As an illustration, the method is applied to driven parametric oscillations of two interacting electrons in a harmonic potential (Hooke's atom). It is demonstrated that a proper choice of time-dependent generator coordinates in conjunction with the adiabatic local-density approximation reproduces the exact linear and nonlinear two-electron dynamics quite accurately, including features associated with double excitations that cannot be captured by TDDFT in the adiabatic approximation.

How tight is the Lieb-Oxford bound?

Density-functional theory requires ever better exchange-correlation (xc) functionals for the ever more precise description of many-body effects on electronic structure. Universal constraints on the xc energy are important ingredients in the construction of improved functionals. Here we investigate one such universal property of xc functionals: the Lieb-Oxford lower bound on the exchange-correlation energy, Exc[n]>or=-Cintegrald3rn4/3, where C

Energy gaps and interaction blockade in confined quantum systems.

We investigate universal properties of strongly confined particles that turn out to be dramatically different from what is observed for electrons in atoms and molecules. For a large class of harmonically confined systems, such as small quantum dots and optically trapped atoms, many-body particle addition and removal energies, and energy gaps, are accurately obtained from single-particle eigenvalues. Transport blockade phenomena are related to the derivative discontinuity of the exchange-correlation functional. This implies that they occur very generally, with Coulomb blockade being a particular realization of a more general phenomenon. In particular, we predict a van der Waals blockade in cold atom gases in traps.

Simple implementation of complex functionals: scaled self-consistency.

We explore and compare three approximate schemes allowing simple implementation of complex density functionals by making use of self-consistent implementation of simpler functionals: (i) post-local-density approximation (LDA) evaluation of complex functionals at the LDA densities (or those of other simple functionals) (ii) application of a global scaling factor to the potential of the simple functional, and (iii) application of a local scaling factor to that potential. Option (i) is a common choice in density-functional calculations. Option (ii) was recently proposed by Cafiero and Gonzalez [Phys. Rev. A 71, 042505 (2005)]. We here put their proposal on a more rigorous basis, by deriving it, and explaining why it works, directly from the theorems of density-functional theory. Option (iii) is proposed here for the first time. We provide detailed comparisons of the three approaches among each other and with fully self-consistent implementations for Hartree, local-density, generalized-gradient, self-interaction corrected, and meta-generalized-gradient approximations, for atoms, ions, quantum wells, and model Hamiltonians. Scaled approaches turn out to be, on average, better than post approaches, and unlike these also provide corrections to eigenvalues and orbitals. Scaled self-consistency thus opens the possibility of efficient and reliable implementation of density functionals of hitherto unprecedented complexity.

Luther-Emery phase and atomic-density waves in a trapped fermion gas.

The Luther-Emery liquid is a state of matter that is predicted to occur in one-dimensional systems of interacting fermions and is characterized by a gapless charge spectrum and a gapped spin spectrum. In this Letter we discuss a realization of the Luther-Emery phase in a trapped cold-atom gas. We study by means of the density-matrix renormalization-group technique a two-component atomic Fermi gas with attractive interactions subject to parabolic trapping inside an optical lattice. We demonstrate how this system exhibits compound phases characterized by the coexistence of spin pairing and atomic-density waves. A smooth crossover occurs with increasing magnitude of the atom-atom attraction to a state in which tightly bound spin-singlet dimers occupy the center of the trap. The existence of atomic-density waves could be detected in the elastic contribution to the light-scattering diffraction pattern.

Quantitative determination of the hubbard model phase diagram from optical lattice experiments by two-parameter scaling.

We propose an experiment to obtain the phase diagram of the fermionic Hubbard model, for any dimensionality, using cold atoms in optical lattices. It is based on measuring the total energy for a sequence of trap profiles. It combines finite-size scaling with an additional "finite-curvature scaling" necessary to reach the homogeneous limit. We illustrate its viability in the 1D case, simulating experimental data in the Bethe-ansatz local-density approximation. Including experimental errors, the filling corresponding to the Mott transition can be determined with better than 3% accuracy.

Density functionals not based on the electron gas: local-density approximation for a Luttinger liquid.

By shifting the reference system for the local-density approximation (LDA) from the electron gas to other model systems, one obtains a new class of density functionals, which by design account for the correlations present in the chosen reference system. This strategy is illustrated by constructing an explicit LDA for the one-dimensional Hubbard model. While the traditional ab initio LDA is based on a Fermi liquid (the three-dimensional interacting electron gas), this one is based on a Luttinger liquid. First applications to inhomogeneous Hubbard models, including one containing a localized impurity, are reported.

Spin currents and spin dynamics in time-dependent density-functional theory.

We derive and analyze the equation of motion for the spin degrees of freedom within time-dependent spin-density-functional theory (TD-SDFT). The results are (i) a prescription for obtaining many-body corrections to the single-particle spin currents from the Kohn-Sham equation of TD-SDFT, (ii) the existence of an exchange-correlation (xc) torque within TD-SDFT, (iii) a prescription for calculating, from TD-SDFT, the torque exerted by spin currents on the spin magnetization, (iv) a novel exact constraint on approximate xc functionals, and (v) the discovery of serious deficiencies of popular approximations to TD-SDFT when applied to spin dynamics.

Nonuniqueness of the potentials of spin-density-functional theory.

It is shown that, contrary to widely held beliefs, the potentials of spin-density-functional theory (SDFT) are not unique functionals of the spin densities. Explicit examples of distinct sets of potentials with the same ground-state densities are constructed. These findings imply that the zero-temperature exchange-correlation energy is not always a differentiable functional of the spin density. As a consequence, various types of applications of SDFT must be critically reexamined.