For orbital-free {\it ab initio} molecular dynamics, especially on systems in extreme thermodynamic conditions, we provide the first pseudo-potential-adapted generalized gradient approximation (GGA) functional for the non-interacting free energy. This is achieved by systematic finite-temperature extension of our recent LKT ground state non-interacting kinetic energy GGA functional (Phys. Rev. B \textbf{98}, 041111(R) (2018)). We test the performance of the new functional first via static lattice calculations on crystalline aluminum and silicon. Then we compare deuterium equation of state results against both path-integral Monte Carlo and conventional (orbital-dependent) Kohn-Sham results. The new functional, denoted LKTF, outperforms the previous best semi-local free energy functional, VT84F (Phys.\ Rev.\ B \textbf{88}, 161108(R) (2013)), and provides modestly faster simulations. We also discuss subtleties of identification of kinetic and entropic contributions to non-interacting free-energy functionals obtained by extension from ground state orbital-free kinetic energy functionals.
Within the framework of linear-scaling Kohn-Sham density functional theory, a robust method for maintaining compact localized orbitals close to the ground state is coupled with nuclear dynamics. This allows to obviate the commonly employed optimization of the one-electron density matrix and thus create an efficient orbital-only molecular dynamics method for weakly-interacting systems. An application to liquid water demonstrates that the low computational overhead of the method makes it well-suited for routine simulations whereas its linear-scaling complexity allows to extend first-principle dy…
The Fermi-Löwdin orbital (FLO) approach to the Perdew-Zunger self-interaction correction (PZ-SIC) to density functional theory (DFT) is described and an improved approach to the problem of optimizing the Fermi-orbitals in order to minimize the DFT-SIC total energy is introduced. To illustrate the use of the FLO-SIC method, results are given for several applications involving problems where self-interaction errors are pronounced.
Due to its efficiency and reasonable accuracy, density functional theory is one of the most widely used electronic structure theories in condensed matter physics, materials physics, and quantum chemistry. The accuracy and efficiency of a density functional is dependent on the basic ingredients it uses, and how the ingredients are built into the functional as a whole. An iso-orbital indicator based on the electron density, its gradients, and the kinetic energy density, has proven an essential dimensionless variable that allows density functionals to recognise and correctly treat various types o…
The analytic energy gradients in the atomic orbital representation have recently been published (J. Chem. Phys. 146, 014102, 2017) within the framework of the natural orbital functional theory (NOFT). We provide here an alternative expression for them in terms of natural orbitals, and use it to derive the analytic second-order energy derivatives with respect to nuclear displacements in the NOFT. The computational burden is shifted to the calculation of perturbed natural orbitals and occupancies, since a set of linear coupled-perturbed equations obtained from the variational Euler equations mus…
Kinetic energy density functionals (KEDFs) are central to orbital-free density functional theory. Limitations on the spatial derivative dependencies of KEDFs have been claimed from differential virial theorems. We point out a central defect in the argument: the relationships are not true for an arbitrary density but hold only for the minimizing density and corresponding chemical potential. Contrary to the claims therefore, the relationships are not constraints and provide no independent information about the spatial derivative dependencies of approximate KEDFs. A simple argument also shows tha…
Orbital-optimized Density Functional Calculations of Molecular Rydberg Excited States with Real Space Grid Representation and Self-Interaction Correction
Orbital-Free Density Functional Theory (OF-DFT) promises to describe the electronic structure of very large quantum systems, being its computational cost linear with the system size. However, the OF-DFT accuracy strongly depends on the approximation made for the kinetic energy (KE) functional. To date, the most accurate KE functionals are non-local functionals based on the linear-response kernel of the homogeneous electron gas, i.e. the jellium model. Here, we use the linear-response kernel of the jellium-with-gap model, to construct a simple non-local KE functional (named KGAP) which depends …
The practical utility of Møller-Plesset (MP) perturbation theory is severely constrained by the use of Hartree-Fock (HF) orbitals. It has recently been shown that use of regularized orbital-optimized MP2 orbitals and scaling of MP3 energy could lead to a significant reduction in MP3 error (J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 10, 4170, 2019). In this work we examine whether density functional theory (DFT) optimized orbitals can be similarly employed to improve the performance of MP theory at both the MP2 and MP3 levels. We find that use of DFT orbitals leads to significantly improved performance for predictio…
In the present work, we tested the performance of several new functionals for studying the mechanisms of concurrent reaction of hydroarylation and oxidative coupling catalyzed by Ru(II) chloride carbonyls. We find that DLPNO-CCSD(T) is an acceptable substitute for full canonical CCSD(T) calculations; that the recent ωB97X-V and ωB97M-V functionals exhibit superior performance to commonly used DFT functionals; and that the revised DSD-PBEP86 double hybrid represents an improvement over the original, even though transition metals were not involved in its parametrization.
Natural orbital functional theory is considered for systems with one or more unpaired electrons. An extension of the Piris natural orbital functional (PNOF) based on electron pairing approach is presented, specifically, we extend the independent pair model, PNOF5, and the interactive pair model PNOF7 to describe spin-uncompensated systems. An explicit form for the two-electron cumulant of high-spin cases is only taken into account, so that singly occupied orbitals with the same spin are solely considered. The rest of electron pairs with opposite spins remain paired. The reconstructed two-parti…
A direct orbital optimization method is presented for density functional calculations of excited electronic states using either a real space grid or a plane wave basis set. The method is variational, provides atomic forces in the excited states, and can be applied to Kohn-Sham (KS) functionals as well as orbital-density dependent functionals (ODD) including explicit self-interaction correction. The implementation for KS functionals involves two nested loops: (1) An inner loop for finding a stationary point in a subspace spanned by the occupied and a few virtual orbitals corresponding to the ex…
Time-dependent orbital-free density functional theory (TD-OFDFT) is an efficient ab-initio method for calculating the electronic dynamics of large systems. In comparison to standard TD-DFT, it computes only a single electronic state regardless of system size, but it requires an additional time-dependent Pauli potential term. We propose a nonadiabatic and nonlocal Pauli potential whose main ingredients are the time-dependent particle and current densities. Our calculations of the optical spectra of metallic and semiconductor clusters indicate that nonlocal and nonadiabatic TD-OFDFT performs acc…
We present a non-decomposable approximation for the non-additive non-interacting kinetic energy (NAKE) for covalent bonds based on the exact behavior of the von Weizsäcker (vW) functional in regions dominated by one orbital. This covalent approximation (CA) seamlessly combines the vW and the Thomas-Fermi (TF) functional with a switching function of the fragment densities constructed to satisfy exact constraints. It also makes use of ensembles and fractionally-occupied spin-orbitals to yield highly accurate NAKE for stretched bonds while outperforming other standard NAKE approximations near equ…
We show that using complex, spin-restricted orbitals (cR) in Kohn-Sham density functional theory (KS-DFT) allows one to access a new class of densities that is not accessible by either spin-restricted (RKS) or spin-unrestricted (UKS) orbitals. We further show that the real part of a cRKS density matrix can be non-idempotent when the imaginary part of the density matrix is not zero. Using cRKS orbitals shows significant improvements in the triplet-singlet gaps of the TS12 benchmark set for the SPW92, PBE, BLYP, and TPSS functionals. Moreover, it was shown that RKS and UKS yield qualitatively wr…
Orbital-optimized density functional calculations of excited electronic states: Recent advances and perspectives
Science Institute and Faculty of Physical Sciences, University of Iceland（冰岛大学物理科学学院科学研究所）；Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Trieste（的里雅斯特大学化学与制药科学学院）
A simple, novel, non-empirical, constraint-based orbital-free generalized gradient approximation (GGA) non-interacting kinetic energy density functional is presented along with illustrative applications. The innovation is adaptation of constraint-based construction to the essential properties of pseudo-densities from the pseudo-potentials that are essential in plane-wave-basis {\it ab initio} molecular dynamics. This contrasts with constraining to the qualitatively different Kato-cusp-condition densities. The single parameter in the new functional is calibrated by satisfying Pauli potential po…
We present an implementation of range separated functionals utilizing the Slater-function on grids in real space in the projector augmented waves method. The screened Poisson equation is solved to evaluate the necessary screened exchange integrals on Cartesian grids. The implementation is verified against existing literature and applied to the description of charge transfer excitations. We find very slow convergence for calculations within linear response time-dependent density functional theory and unoccupied orbitals of the canonical Fock operator. Convergence can be severely improved by usi…
Analytic energy gradients with respect to nuclear motion are derived for non-singlet compounds in the natural orbital functional theory. We exploit the formulation for multiplets in order to obtain a simple formula valid for any many-electron system in its ground mixed state with a total spin S and all possible spin projection Sz values. We demonstrate that the analytic gradients can be obtained without resorting to linear response theory or involving iterative procedures. It is required a single evaluation, so integral derivatives can be computed on-the-fly along the calculation and thus impr…
Localized molecular orbitals are often used for the analysis of chemical bonds, but they can also serve to efficiently and comprehensibly compute linear response properties. While conventional canonical molecular orbitals provide an adequate basis for the treatment of excited states, a chemically meaningful identification of the different excited-state processes is difficult within such a delocalized orbital basis. In this work, starting from an initial set of supermolecular canonical molecular orbitals, we provide a simple one-step top-down embedding procedure for generating a set of orbitals…
Simulating one hundred entangled atoms using projected-interacting full configuration interaction wavefunctions corrected by projected density functionals
This work assesses the performance of the recently proposed global natural orbital functional (GNOF) against the charge delocalization error. GNOF provides a good balance between static and dynamic electronic correlation leading to accurate total energies while preserving spin, even for systems with a highly multi-configurational character. Several analyses were applied to the functional, namely i) how the charge is distributed in super-systems of two fragments, ii) the stability of ionization potentials while increasing the system size, and iii) potential energy curves of a neutral and charge…
Any rigorous approach to first-order reduced density (1RDM) matrix functional theory faces the phase dilemma, that is, having to deal with a large number of possible combinations of signs in terms of the electron-electron interaction energy. This problem was discovered by reducing a ground-state energy generated from an approximate N-particle wavefunction into a functional of the 1RDM, known as the top-down method. Here, we show that the phase dilemma also appears in the bottom-up method, in which the functional E[1RDM] is generated by progressive inclusion of N-representability conditions on …
5- and 6-membered rings: A natural orbital functional study
Fisika Aplikatuko departamentua, Vitoria-Gasteiz Ingenieritza Eskola, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (EHU)（巴斯克大学）；Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC)（圣塞巴斯蒂安国际物理中心）；Departamento de Física y Química Teórica, Facultad de Química, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México（墨西哥国立自治大学化学学院理论物理与化学系）；Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México（墨西哥国立自治大学数学系）；Polimero eta Material Aurreratuak: Fisika Kimika eta Teknologia, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (EHU)（巴斯克大学先进聚合物与材料：物理化学与技术）；Basque Foundation for Science (IKERBASQUE)（巴斯克科学基金会）
