We present the theoretical derivation and numerical implementation of the linear response equations for relativistic quantum electrodynamical density functional theory (QEDFT). In contrast to previous works based on the Pauli-Fierz Hamiltonian, our approach describes electrons interacting with photonic cavity modes at the four-component Dirac-Kohn-Sham level, derived from fully relativistic QED through a series of established approximations. Moreover, we show that a new type of spin-orbit-like (SO) cavity-mediated interaction appears under the relativistic description of the coupling of matter with quantized cavity modes. Benchmark calculations performed for atoms of group 12 elements (Zn, Cd, Hg) demonstrate how a relativistic treatment enables the description of exciton polaritons which arise from the hybridization of formally forbidden singlet-triplet transitions with cavity modes. For atoms in cavities tuned on resonance with a singlet-triplet transition we discover a significant interplay between SO effects and coupling to an off-resonant intense singlet-singlet transition. This dynamic relationship highlights the crucial role of ab initio approaches in understanding cavity quantum electrodynamics. Finally, using the mercury porphyrin complex as an example, we show that relativistic linear response QEDFT provides computationally feasible first-principles calculations of polaritonic states in large heavy element-containing molecules of chemical interest.
The Quantum-Electrodynamical Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (QED-TDDFT) equations are solved by time propagating the wave function on a tensor product of a Fock-space and real-space grid. Applications for molecules in cavities show the accuracy of the approach. Examples include the coupling strength and light frequency dependence of the energies, wave functions, optical absorption spectra, and Rabi splitting magnitudes in cavities, as well as a description of high harmonic generation in cavities.
Inspired by the formulation of quantum-electrodynamical time-dependent density functional theory (QED-TDDFT) by Rubio and coworkers, we propose an implementation that uses dimensionless amplitudes for describing the photonic contributions to QED-TDDFT electron-photon eigenstates. The leads to a symmetric QED-TDDFT coupling matrix, which is expected to facilitate the future development of analytic derivatives. Through a Gaussian atomic basis implementation of the QED-TDDFT method, we examined the effect of dipole self-energy, rotating wave approximation, and the Tamm-Dancoff approximation on th…
The hydrogen molecule has become a test ground for quantum electrodynamical calculations in molecules. Expanding beyond studies on stable hydrogenic species to the heavier radioactive tritium-bearing molecules, we report on a measurement of the fundamental T$_2$ vibrational splitting $(v= 0 \rightarrow 1)$ for $J=0-5$ rotational levels. Precision frequency metrology is performed with high-resolution coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy at an experimental uncertainty of $10-12$~MHz, where sub-Doppler saturation features are exploited for the strongest transition. The achieved accuracy corres…
We lay out the extension of range-separated density-functional theory to a four-component relativistic frame-work using a Dirac-Coulomb-Breit Hamiltonian in the no-pair approximation. This formalism combines a wave-function method for the long-range part of the electron-electron interaction with a density(-current) functionalfor the short-range part of the interaction. We construct for this formalism a short-range exchange local-densityapproximation based on calculations on a relativistic homogeneous electron gas with a modified Coulomb-Breitelectron-electron interaction. More specifically, we…
The rapidly developing and converging fields of polaritonic chemistry and quantum optics necessitate a unified approach to predict strongly-correlated light-matter interactions with atomic-scale resolution. Combining concepts from both fields presents an opportunity to create a predictive theoretical and computational approach to describe cavity correlated electron-nuclear dynamics from first principles. Towards this overarching goal, we introduce a general time-dependent density-functional theory to study correlated electron, nuclear and photon interactions on the same quantized footing. In o…
First principle theoretical modeling of out-of-equilibrium processes observed in attosecond pump-probe transient absorption spectroscopy (TAS) triggering pure electron dynamics remains a challenging task, specially for heavy elements and/or core excitations containing fingerprints of scalar and spin-orbit relativistic effects. To address this, we formulate a methodology for simulating TAS within the relativistic real-time time-dependent density functional theory (RT-TDDFT) framework, for both the valence and core energy regime. Especially for TAS, full four-component (4c) RT simulations are fe…
Proton transfer is ubiquitous in many fundamental chemical and biological processes, and the ability to modulate and control the proton transfer rate would have a major impact on numerous quantum technological advances. One possibility to modulate the reaction rate of proton transfer processes is given by exploiting the strong light-matter coupling of chemical systems inside optical or nanoplasmonic cavities. In this work, we investigate the proton transfer reactions in the prototype malonaldehyde and Z-3-amino-propenal (aminopropenal) molecules using different quantum electrodynamics methods,…
Recent experimental advances in strongly coupled light-matter systems has sparked the development of general ab-initio methods capable of describing interacting light-matter systems from first principles. One of these methods, quantum-electrodynamical density-functional theory (QEDFT), promises computationally efficient calculations for large correlated light-matter systems with the quality of the calculation depending on the underlying approximation for the exchange-correlation functional. So far no true density-functional approximation has been introduced limiting the efficient application o…
We develop relativistic short-range exchange energy functionals for four-component relativistic range-separated density-functional theory using a Dirac-Coulomb Hamiltonian in the no-pair approximation. We show how to improve the short-range local-density approximation exchange functional for large range-separation parameters by using the on-top exchange pair density as a new variable. We also develop a relativistic short-range generalized-gradient approximation exchange functional which further increases the accuracy for small range-separation parameters. Tests on the helium, beryllium, neon, …
A relativistic density-functional theory based on a Fock-space effective quantum-electrodynamics (QED) Hamiltonian using the Coulomb or Coulomb-Breit two-particle interaction is developed. This effective QED theory properly includes the effects of vacuum polarization through the creation of electron-positron pairs but does not include explicitly the photon degrees of freedom. It is thus a more tractable alternative to full QED for atomic and molecular calculations. Using the constrained-search formalism, a Kohn-Sham scheme is formulated in a quite similar way to non-relativistic density-functi…
As a new approach to efficiently describe correlation effects in the relativistic quantum world we propose to consider reduced density matrix functional theory, where the key quantity is the first-order reduced density matrix (1-RDM). In this work, we first introduce the theoretical foundations to extend the applicability of this theory to the relativistic domain. Then, using the so-called no-pair (np) approximation, we arrive at an approximate treatment of the relativistic effects by focusing on electronic wavefunctions and neglecting explicit contributions from positrons. Within the np appro…
We construct the complementary short-range correlation relativistic local-density-approximation functional to be used in relativistic range-separated density-functional theory based on a Dirac-Coulomb Hamiltonian in the no-pair approximation. For this, we perform relativistic random-phase-approximation calculations of the correlation energy of the relativistic homogeneous electron gas with a modified electron-electron interaction, we study the high-density behavior, and fit the results to a parametrized expression. The obtained functional should eventually be useful for electronic-structure ca…
The Breit correction, the finite-light-speed correction for the Coulomb interaction of the electron-electron interaction in $ O \left( 1/ c^2 \right) $, is introduced to density functional theory (DFT) based on the non-relativistic reduction with the local density approximation. Using this newly developed relativistic DFT, it is found that the possible outer-most electron of lawrencium atom is the $ p $ orbital instead of the $ d $ orbital, which is consistent with the previous calculations based on wave-function theory. A possible explanation of the anomalous behavior of its first ionization …
Light-Matter Response in Non-Relativistic Quantum Electrodynamics: Quantum Modifications of Maxwell's Equations
John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University（哈佛大学工程与应用科学学院）；Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter（马普物质结构与动力学研究所）
Core-level spectra of 1s electrons of elements heavier than Ne show significant relativistic effects. We combine advances in orbital optimized DFT (OO-DFT) with the spin-free exact two-component (X2C) model for scalar relativistic effects, to study K-edge spectra of third period elements. OO-DFT/X2C is found to be quite accurate at predicting energies, yielding $\sim 0.5$ eV RMS error vs experiment with the modern SCAN (and related) functionals. This marks a significant improvement over the $>50$ eV deviations that are typical for the popular time-dependent DFT (TDDFT) approach. Consequently, …
