Virial Relations for Electrons Coupled to Quantum Field Modes.

In this work, we present a set of virial relations for many electron systems coupled to both classical and quantum fields, described by the Pauli-Fierz Hamiltonian in dipole approximation and using length gauge. Currently, there is growing interest in solutions of this Hamiltonian because of its relevance for describing molecular systems strongly coupled to photonic modes in cavities and in the possible modification of chemical properties of such systems compared to the ones in free space. The relevance of such virial relations is demonstrated by showing a connection to mass renormalization and by providing an exact way to obtain total energies from potentials in the framework of quantum electrodynamical density functional theory.

Light-Matter Hybrid-Orbital-Based First-Principles Methods: The Influence of Polariton Statistics.

A detailed understanding of strong matter-photon interactions requires first-principle methods that can solve the fundamental Pauli-Fierz Hamiltonian of nonrelativistic quantum electrodynamics efficiently. A possible way to extend well-established electronic-structure methods to this situation is to embed the Pauli-Fierz Hamiltonian in a higher-dimensional light-matter hybrid auxiliary configuration space. In this work we show the importance of the resulting hybrid Fermi-Bose statistics of the polaritons, which are the new fundamental particles of the "photon-dressed" Pauli-Fierz Hamiltonian for systems in cavities. We show that violations of these statistics can lead to unphysical results. We present an efficient way to ensure the correct statistics by enforcing representability conditions on the dressed one-body reduced density matrix. We further present a general prescription how to extend a given first-principles approach to polaritons and as an example introduce polaritonic Hartree-Fock theory. While being a single-reference method in polariton space, polaritonic Hartree-Fock is a multireference method in the electronic space, i.e., it describes electronic correlations. We also discuss possible applications to polaritonic QEDFT. We apply this theory to a lattice model and find that, the more delocalized the bound-state wave function of the particles is, the stronger it reacts to photons. The main reason is that within a small energy range, many states with different electronic configurations are available as opposed to a strongly bound (and hence energetically separated) ground-state wave function. This indicates that under certain conditions coupling to the quantum vacuum of a cavity can indeed modify ground state properties.

Octopus, a computational framework for exploring light-driven phenomena and quantum dynamics in extended and finite systems.

Over the last few years, extraordinary advances in experimental and theoretical tools have allowed us to monitor and control matter at short time and atomic scales with a high degree of precision. An appealing and challenging route toward engineering materials with tailored properties is to find ways to design or selectively manipulate materials, especially at the quantum level. To this end, having a state-of-the-art ab initio computer simulation tool that enables a reliable and accurate simulation of light-induced changes in the physical and chemical properties of complex systems is of utmost importance. The first principles real-space-based Octopus project was born with that idea in mind, i.e., to provide a unique framework that allows us to describe non-equilibrium phenomena in molecular complexes, low dimensional materials, and extended systems by accounting for electronic, ionic, and photon quantum mechanical effects within a generalized time-dependent density functional theory. This article aims to present the new features that have been implemented over the last few years, including technical developments related to performance and massive parallelism. We also describe the major theoretical developments to address ultrafast light-driven processes, such as the new theoretical framework of quantum electrodynamics density-functional formalism for the description of novel light-matter hybrid states. Those advances, and others being released soon as part of the Octopus package, will allow the scientific community to simulate and characterize spatial and time-resolved spectroscopies, ultrafast phenomena in molecules and materials, and new emergent states of matter (quantum electrodynamical-materials).

Reduced Density-Matrix Approach to Strong Matter-Photon Interaction.

We present a first-principles approach to electronic many-body systems strongly coupled to cavity modes in terms of matter-photon one-body reduced density matrices. The theory is fundamentally nonperturbative and thus captures not only the effects of correlated electronic systems but accounts also for strong interactions between matter and photon degrees of freedom. We do so by introducing a higher-dimensional auxiliary system that maps the coupled fermion-boson system to a dressed fermionic problem. This reformulation allows us to overcome many fundamental challenges of density-matrix theory in the context of coupled fermion-boson systems and we can employ conventional reduced density-matrix functional theory developed for purely fermionic systems. We provide results for one-dimensional model systems in real space and show that simple density-matrix approximations are accurate from the weak to the deep-strong coupling regime. This justifies the application of our method to systems that are too complex for exact calculations and we present first results, which show that the influence of the photon field depends sensitively on the details of the electronic structure.

Force balance approach for advanced approximations in density functional theories.

We propose a systematic and constructive way to determine the exchange-correlation potentials of density-functional theories including vector potentials. The approach does not rely on energy or action functionals. Instead, it is based on equations of motion of current quantities (force balance equations) and is feasible both in the ground-state and the time-dependent settings. This avoids, besides differentiability and causality issues, the optimized-effective-potential procedure of orbital-dependent functionals. We provide straightforward exchange-type approximations for different density functional theories that for a homogeneous system and no external vector potential reduce to the exchange-only local-density and Slater Xα approximations.

Self-Consistent Density-Functional Embedding: A Novel Approach for Density-Functional Approximations.

In the present work, we introduce a self-consistent density-functional embedding technique, which leaves the realm of standard energy-functional approaches in density functional theory and targets directly the density-to-potential mapping that lies at its heart. Inspired by the density matrix embedding theory, we project the full system onto a set of small interacting fragments that can be solved accurately. Based on the rigorous relation of density and potential in density functional theory, we then invert the fragment densities to local potentials. Combining these results in a continuous manner provides an update for the Kohn-Sham potential of the full system, which is then used to update the projection. We benchmark our approach for molecular bond stretching in one and two dimensions and show that, in these cases, the scheme converges to accurate approximations for densities and Kohn-Sham potentials. We demonstrate that the known steps and peaks of the exact exchange-correlation potential are reproduced by our method with remarkable accuracy.

Kinetic-Energy Density-Functional Theory on a Lattice.

We present a kinetic-energy density-functional theory and the corresponding kinetic-energy Kohn-Sham (keKS) scheme on a lattice and show that, by including more observables explicitly in a density-functional approach, already simple approximation strategies lead to very accurate results. Here, we promote the kinetic-energy density to a fundamental variable alongside the density and show for specific cases (analytically and numerically) that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the external pair of on-site potential and site-dependent hopping and the internal pair of density and kinetic-energy density. On the basis of this mapping, we establish two unknown effective fields, the mean-field exchange-correlation potential and the mean-field exchange-correlation hopping, which force the keKS system to generate the same kinetic-energy density and density as the fully interacting one. We show, by a decomposition based on the equations of motions for the density and the kinetic-energy density, that we can construct simple orbital-dependent functionals that outperform the corresponding exact-exchange Kohn-Sham (KS) approximation of standard density-functional theory. We do so by considering the exact KS and keKS systems and comparing the unknown correlation contributions as well as by comparing self-consistent calculations based on the mean-field exchange (for the effective potential) and a uniform (for the effective hopping) approximation for the keKS and the exact-exchange approximation for the KS system, respectively.

Structure of the first order reduced density matrix in three electron systems: A generalized Pauli constraints assisted study.

We investigate the structure of the one-body reduced density matrix of three electron systems, i.e., doublet and quadruplet spin configurations, corresponding to the smallest interacting system with an open-shell ground state. To this end, we use configuration interaction (CI) expansions of the exact wave function in Slater determinants built from natural orbitals in a finite dimensional Hilbert space. With the exception of maximally polarized systems, the natural orbitals of spin eigenstates are generally spin dependent, i.e., the spatial parts of the up and down natural orbitals form two different sets. A measure to quantify this spin dependence is introduced and it is shown that it varies by several orders of magnitude depending on the system. We also study the ordering issue of the spin-dependent occupation numbers which has practical implications in reduced density matrix functional theory minimization schemes, when generalized Pauli constraints (GPCs) are imposed and in the form of the CI expansion in terms of the natural orbitals. Finally, we discuss the aforementioned CI expansion when there are GPCs that are almost "pinned."

Conditions for Describing Triplet States in Reduced Density Matrix Functional Theory.

We consider necessary conditions for the one-body reduced density matrix (1RDM) to correspond to a triplet wave function of a two-electron system. The conditions concern the occupation numbers and are different for the high spin projections, Sz = ±1, and the Sz = 0 projection. Hence, they can be used to test if an approximate 1RDM functional yields the same energies for both projections. We employ these conditions in reduced density matrix functional theory calculations for the triplet excitations of two-electron systems. In addition, we propose that these conditions can be used in the calculation of triplet states of systems with more than two electrons by restricting the active space. We assess this procedure in calculations for a few atomic and molecular systems. We show that the quality of the optimal 1RDMs improves by applying the conditions in all the cases we studied.

Orbitals from local RDMFT: Are they Kohn-Sham or natural orbitals?

Recently, an approximate theoretical framework was introduced, called local reduced density matrix functional theory (local-RDMFT), where functionals of the one-body reduced density matrix (1-RDM) are minimized under the additional condition that the optimal orbitals satisfy a single electron Schrödinger equation with a local potential. In the present work, we focus on the character of these optimal orbitals. In particular, we compare orbitals obtained by local-RDMFT with those obtained with the full minimization (without the extra condition) by contrasting them against the exact NOs and orbitals from a density functional calculation using the local density approximation (LDA). We find that the orbitals from local-RMDFT are very close to LDA orbitals, contrary to those of the full minimization that resemble the exact NOs. Since local RDMFT preserves the good quality of the description of strong static correlation, this finding opens the way to a mixed density/density matrix scheme, where Kohn-Sham orbitals obtain fractional occupations from a minimization of the occupation numbers using 1-RDM functionals. This will allow for a description of strong correlation at a cost only minimally higher than a density functional calculation.

Generalized Pauli constraints in reduced density matrix functional theory.

Functionals of the one-body reduced density matrix (1-RDM) are routinely minimized under Coleman's ensemble N-representability conditions. Recently, the topic of pure-state N-representability conditions, also known as generalized Pauli constraints, received increased attention following the discovery of a systematic way to derive them for any number of electrons and any finite dimensionality of the Hilbert space. The target of this work is to assess the potential impact of the enforcement of the pure-state conditions on the results of reduced density-matrix functional theory calculations. In particular, we examine whether the standard minimization of typical 1-RDM functionals under the ensemble N-representability conditions violates the pure-state conditions for prototype 3-electron systems. We also enforce the pure-state conditions, in addition to the ensemble ones, for the same systems and functionals and compare the correlation energies and optimal occupation numbers with those obtained by the enforcement of the ensemble conditions alone.

Real-space grids and the Octopus code as tools for the development of new simulation approaches for electronic systems.

Real-space grids are a powerful alternative for the simulation of electronic systems. One of the main advantages of the approach is the flexibility and simplicity of working directly in real space where the different fields are discretized on a grid, combined with competitive numerical performance and great potential for parallelization. These properties constitute a great advantage at the time of implementing and testing new physical models. Based on our experience with the Octopus code, in this article we discuss how the real-space approach has allowed for the recent development of new ideas for the simulation of electronic systems. Among these applications are approaches to calculate response properties, modeling of photoemission, optimal control of quantum systems, simulation of plasmonic systems, and the exact solution of the Schrödinger equation for low-dimensionality systems.

Charge transfer excitations from excited state Hartree-Fock subsequent minimization scheme.

Photoinduced charge-transfer processes play a key role for novel photovoltaic phenomena and devices. Thus, the development of ab initio methods that allow for an accurate and computationally inexpensive treatment of charge-transfer excitations is a topic that nowadays attracts a lot of scientific attention. In this paper we extend an approach recently introduced for the description of single and double excitations [M. Tassi, I. Theophilou, and S. Thanos, Int. J. Quantum Chem. 113, 690 (2013); M. Tassi, I. Theophilou, and S. Thanos, J. Chem. Phys. 138, 124107 (2013)] to allow for the description of intermolecular charge-transfer excitations. We describe an excitation where an electron is transferred from a donor system to an acceptor one, keeping the excited state orthogonal to the ground state and avoiding variational collapse. These conditions are achieved by decomposing the space spanned by the Hartree-Fock (HF) ground state orbitals into four subspaces: The subspace spanned by the occupied orbitals that are localized in the region of the donor molecule, the corresponding for the acceptor ones and two more subspaces containing the virtual orbitals that are localized in the neighborhood of the donor and the acceptor, respectively. Next, we create a Slater determinant with a hole in the subspace of occupied orbitals of the donor and a particle in the virtual subspace of the acceptor. Subsequently we optimize both the hole and the particle by minimizing the HF energy functional in the corresponding subspaces. Finally, we test our approach by calculating the lowest charge-transfer excitation energies for a set of tetracyanoethylene-hydrocarbon complexes that have been used earlier as a test set for such kind of excitations.

Double excitations from modified Hartree Fock subsequent minimization scheme.

Doubly excited states have nowadays become important in technological applications, e.g., in increasing the efficiency of solar cells and therefore, their description using ab initio methods is a great theoretical challenge as double excitations cannot be described by linear response theories based on a single Slater determinant. In the present work we extend our recently developed Hartree-Fock (HF) approximation for calculating singly excited states [M. Tassi, I. Theophilou, and S. Thanos, Int. J. Quantum Chem. 113, 690 (2013)] in order to allow for the calculation of doubly excited states. We describe the double excitation as two holes in the subspace spanned from the occupied HF orbitals and two particles in the subspace of virtual HF orbitals. A subsequent minimization of the energy results to the determination of the spin orbitals of both the holes and the particles in the occupied and virtual subspaces, respectively. We test our method, for various atoms, H2 and polyene molecules which are known to have excitations presenting a significant double excitation character. Importantly, our approach is computationally inexpensive.

Spin contamination for Hartree-Fock, optimized effective potential, and density functional approximations.

In an earlier paper [S. Thanos and A. K. Theophilou J. Chem. Phys. 124, 204109 (2006)], we found an explicit formula for the expansion of a Slater determinant |Phi(M)> in terms of eigenstates of S(2). In this paper, we use the same formula to determine the spin contamination S(con) of the unrestricted single determinant approximations, i.e., Hartree-Fock, optimized effective potential, and density functional theory. We derived an expression which gives S(con) in terms of the overlap of the spatial parts of the spin up and spin down "corresponding" orbitals. It was found that S(con) does not depend on M, the eigenvalue of S(z), at least for the lower order approximations, i.e., when || is large. In this case, the predominant coefficient of the expansion assumes its maximum value when S=M. However, for the class of solutions that || is small, the spin L of the largest coefficient increases with the number of unpaired electrons. We also derived the explicit form of the expansion states.