Adiabatic Connection Formula Research Articles

Density functional theory beyond the Born–Oppenheimer approximation: exact mapping onto an electronically non-interacting Kohn–Sham molecule

This work presents an alternative, general, and in-principle exact extension of electronic Kohn–Sham density functional theory (KS-DFT) to the fully quantum-mechanical molecular problem. Unlike in existing multi-component or exact-factorization-based DFTs of electrons and nuclei, both nuclear and electronic densities are mapped onto a fictitious electronically non-interacting molecule (referred to as KS molecule), where the electrons still interact with the nuclei. Moreover, in the present molecular KS-DFT, no assumption is made about the mathematical form (exactly factorized or not) of the molecular wavefunction. By expanding the KS molecular wavefunction à la Born–Huang, we obtain a self-consistent set of ‘KS beyond Born–Oppenheimer’ electronic equations coupled to nuclear equations that describe nuclei interacting among themselves and with non-interacting electrons. An exact adiabatic connection formula is derived for the Hartree-exchange-correlation energy of the electrons within the molecule and, on that basis, a practical adiabatic density-functional approximation is proposed and discussed.

Exchange–correlation entropy from the generalized thermal adiabatic connection

Warm dense matter is a highly energetic phase characterized by strong correlations, thermal effects, and quantum mechanical electrons. Thermal density functional theory is commonly used in simulations of this challenging phase, driving the development of temperature-dependent approximations to the exchange–correlation free energy. Approaches using the adiabatic connection formula are well known at zero temperature and have been recently leveraged at non-zero temperatures as well. In this work, a generalized thermal adiabatic connection (GTAC) formula is proposed, introducing a fictitious temperature parameter. This allows extraction of the exchange–correlation entropy SXC using simulated interaction strength scaling. This procedure uses a Hellmann–Feynman approach to express the exchange–correlation entropy in terms of a temperature- and interaction strength-dependent exchange–correlation potential energy. In addition, analysis of SXC as a function of interaction strength suggests new forms for approximations, and GTAC itself offers a new framework for exploring both the exact and approximate interplay of temperature, density, and interaction strength across a wide range of conditions.

Reduced density matrix functional theory from an ab initio seniority-zero wave function: Exact and approximate formulations along adiabatic connection paths

Currently, there is a growing interest in the development of a new hierarchy of methods based on the concept of seniority, which has been introduced quite recently in quantum chemistry. Despite the enormous potential of these methods, the accurate description of both dynamical and static correlation effects within a single and in-principle-exact approach remains a challenge. In this work, we propose an alternative formulation of reduced density-matrix functional theory (RDMFT) where the (one-electron reduced) density matrix is mapped onto an ab initio seniority-zero wave function. In this theory, the exact natural orbitals and their occupancies are determined self-consistently from an effective seniority-zero calculation. The latter involves a universal higher-seniority density matrix functional for which an adiabatic connection (AC) formula is derived and implemented under specific constraints that are related to the density matrix. The pronounced curvature of the (constrained) AC integrand, which is numerically observed in prototypical hydrogen chains and the Helium dimer, indicates that a description of higher-seniority correlations within second-order perturbation theory is inadequate in this context. Applying multiple linear interpolations along the AC or connecting second-order perturbation theory to a full-seniority treatment via Pad\'{e} approximants are better strategies. Such information is expected to serve as a guide in the future design of higher-seniority density-matrix functional approximations.

Assessing the Accuracy of the SCAN Functional for Water through a Many-Body Analysis of the Adiabatic Connection Formula.

We present a systematic analysis of the accuracy of a series of SCANα functionals for water, with varying fractions (α) of exact exchange, which are constructed through the adiabatic connection formula. Our results indicate that all SCANα functionals exhibit substantial errors in the representation of the water 2-body energies. Importantly, the inclusion of exact exchange is found to have opposite effects on the ability of the SCANα functionals to describe the interaction energies of water clusters with 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional hydrogen-bonding arrangements. These errors are found to directly affect the ability of the SCANα functionals to describe the structure of liquid water at ambient conditions, which is investigated using explicit many-body models (MB-SCANα) derived from the corresponding SCANα data. In particular, it is found that all MB-SCANα models predict a more compact first hydration shell, which results in a denser liquid with a more ice-like structure. These apparent opposite trends can be explained by the inability of the SCANα functionals to provide a balanced description of the water 2B and 3B energies at the fundamental level. The analyses presented in this study provide new insights that can guide future developments of improved exchange-correlation functionals for aqueous systems.

Correlation Energy from the Adiabatic Connection Formalism for Complete Active Space Wave Functions.

Recently, the adiabatic connection (AC) formula for the electron correlation energy has been proposed for a broad class of multireference wave functions (Pernal, K. Electron Correlation from the Adiabatic Connection for Multireference Wave Functions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2018, 120, 013001). We show that the AC formula used together with the extended random phase approximation (ERPA) can be efficiently applied to complete active space (CAS) wave functions to recover the remaining electron correlation. Unlike most of the perturbation theory approaches, the proposed AC-CAS method does not require construction of higher than two-electron reduced density matrices, which offers an immediate computational saving. In addition, we show that typically the AC-CAS systematically reduces the errors of both the absolute value of energy and of the energy differences (energy barrier) upon enlarging active spaces for electrons and orbitals. AC-CAS consistently gains in accuracy from including more active electrons. We also propose and study that the performance of the AC0 approach resulting from the first-order expansion of the AC integrand at the coupling constant equal to 0. AC0 avoids solving the full ERPA eigenequation, replacing it with small-dimension eigenproblems, while retaining good accuracy of the AC-CAS method. Low computational cost, compared to AC-CAS or perturbational approaches, makes AC0 the most efficient ab initio approach to capturing electron correlation for the CAS wave functions.

Electron Correlation from the Adiabatic Connection for Multireference Wave Functions

An adiabatic connection (AC) formula for the electron correlation energy is derived for a broad class of multireference wave functions. The AC expression recovers dynamic correlation energy and assures a balanced treatment of the correlation energy. Coupling the AC formalism with the extended random phase approximation allows one to find the correlation energy only from reference one- and two-electron reduced density matrices. If the generalized valence bond perfect pairing model is employed a simple closed-form expression for the approximate AC formula is obtained. This results in the overall M^{5} scaling of the computation cost making the method one of the most efficient multireference approaches accounting for dynamic electron correlation also for the strongly correlated systems.

Ghost-interaction correction in ensemble density-functional theory for excited states with and without range separation

Ensemble density-functional theory (eDFT) suffers from the so-called "ghost interaction" error when approximate exchange-correlation functionals are used. In this work, we present a rigorous ghost interaction correction (GIC) scheme in the context of range-separated eDFT. The method relies on an exact decomposition of the ensemble short-range exchange-correlation energy into a multideterminantal exact exchange term, which involves the long-range interacting ensemble density matrix instead of the Kohn--Sham (KS) one, and a complementary density-functional correlation energy. A generalized adiabatic connection formula is derived for the latter. In order to perform practical calculations, the complementary correlation functional has been simply modeled by its ground-state local density approximation (LDA) while long-range interacting ground- and excited-state wavefunctions have been obtained self-consistently by combining a long-range configuration interaction calculation with a short-range LDA potential. We show that GIC reduces the curvature of approximate range-separated ensemble energies drastically while providing considerably more accurate excitation energies, even for charge-transfer and double excitations. Interestingly, the method performs well also in the context of standard KS-eDFT, which is recovered when the range-separation parameter is set to zero.

Exact thermal density functional theory for a model system: Correlation components and accuracy of the zero-temperature exchange-correlation approximation

Thermal density functional theory calculations often use the Mermin-Kohn-Sham scheme, but employ ground-state approximations to the exchange-correlation (XC) free energy. In the simplest solvable nontrivial model, an asymmetric Hubbard dimer, we calculate the exact many-body energies and the exact Mermin-Kohn-Sham functionals for this system and extract the exact XC free energy. For moderate temperatures and weak correlation, we find this approximation to be excellent. We extract various exact free-energy correlation components and the exact adiabatic connection formula.

Connection formulas for thermal density functional theory

The adiabatic connection formula of ground-state density functional theory relates the correlation energy to a coupling-constant integral over a purely potential contribution, and is widely used to understand and improve approximations. The corresponding formula for thermal density functional theory is cast as an integral over temperatures instead, ranging upward from the system's physical temperature. We also show how to relate different correlation components to each other, either in terms of temperature or coupling-constant integrations. We illustrate our results on the uniform electron gas.

Analytical double-hybrid density functional based on the polynomial series expansion of adiabatic connection: a quadratic approximation.

We present a systematic derivation of double-hybrid density functional (DHDF) based on the polynomial series expansion of adiabatic connection formula in the closed interval λ = [0,1] without a loss of generality. Because of the tendency of Wλ having a small (but not negligible) curvature at equilibrium, we first evaluate the chemical validity of quadratic approximation for Wλ using the large GMTKN30 benchmark database. The resulting functional, obtained analytically and denoted by quadratic adiabatic connection functional-PT2 (QACF-2), is found to be robust and accurate (2.35 kcal/mol of weighted total mean absolute deviation error, WTMAD), comparable or slightly improved compared to other flavors of existing parameter-free DHDFs (2.45 or 3.29 kcal/mol for PBE0-2 or PBE0-DH, respectively). The nonlocal expansion coefficients obtained for the current QACF-2 (aHF = 2/3, aPT2 = 1/3) also offer some interesting observation, in that the latter analytical coefficients are very similar to the empirically optimized coefficients in some of the best DHDFs today with high accuracy (1.5 kcal/mol). Effects of quadratic truncation in QACF-2 have been further assessed and justified by estimating the higher-order corrections to be as much as 0.54 kcal/mol. The present derivation and numerical experiments suggest that the quadratic λ dependence, despite its simplicity, is a surprisingly good approximation to the adiabatic connection that can serve as a good starting point for further development of accurate parameter-free density functionals.

Multicomponent density functional theory study of the interplay between electron-electron and electron-proton correlation

The interplay between electron-electron and electron-proton correlation is investigated within the framework of the nuclear-electronic orbital density functional theory (NEO-DFT) approach, which treats electrons and select protons quantum mechanically on the same level. Recently two electron-proton correlation functionals were developed from the electron-proton pair densities obtained from explicitly correlated wavefunctions. In these previous derivations, the kinetic energy contribution arising from electron-proton correlation was neglected. In this paper, an electron-proton correlation functional that includes this kinetic energy contribution is derived using the adiabatic connection formula in multicomponent DFT. The performance of the NEO-DFT approach using all three electron-proton correlation functionals in conjunction with three well-established electronic exchange-correlation functionals is assessed. NEO-DFT calculations with these electron-proton correlation functionals capture the increase in the hydrogen vibrational stretching frequencies arising from the inclusion of electron-electron correlation in model systems. Electron-proton and electron-electron correlation are found to be uncoupled and predominantly additive effects to the total energy for the model systems studied. Thus, electron-proton correlation functionals and electronic exchange-correlation functionals can be developed independently and subsequently combined together without re-parameterization.

Adiabatic connection for strictly correlated electrons

Modern density functional theory (DFT) calculations employ the Kohn-Sham system of noninteracting electrons as a reference, with all complications buried in the exchange-correlation energy (E(XC)). The adiabatic connection formula gives an exact expression for E(XC). We consider DFT calculations that instead employ a reference of strictly correlated electrons. We define a "decorrelation energy" that relates this reference to the real system, and derive the corresponding adiabatic connection formula. We illustrate this theory in three situations, namely, the uniform electron gas, Hooke's atom, and the stretched hydrogen molecule. The adiabatic connection for strictly correlated electrons provides an alternative perspective for understanding DFT and constructing approximate functionals.

Properties of the exact universal functional in multicomponent density functional theory

Multicomponent density functional theory has been developed to treat systems with more than one type of quantum particle, such as electrons and nuclei, in an external potential. The existence of the exact universal multicomponent density functional in terms of the one-particle densities for each type of quantum particle has been proven. In the present paper, a number of important mathematical properties of the exact universal multicomponent density functional are derived. The expression relating the electron-proton pair density to the one-particle densities leads to an inequality for the potential energy component of the electron-proton correlation functional under well-defined conditions. General inequalities for the kinetic energy correlation functionals and the total electron-proton correlation functional are also derived. The coordinate scaling analysis leads to mathematical inequalities describing the effect of scaled densities on the kinetic, potential, and total energy functionals. The adiabatic connection formula defines the exact electron-proton functional in terms of an adiabatic scaling parameter that smoothly connects the noninteracting system with the fully interacting system. The virial expression provides the relation between the exact kinetic and potential energy functionals for the ground state densities of multicomponent systems. These mathematical relationships provide insight into the fundamental properties of the exact universal multicomponent density functional and serve as a guide for the development of approximate electron-proton density functionals.

Adiabatic Connection and the Kohn-Sham Variety of Potential-Functional Theory.

In potential−functional theory the total electronic energy is expressed as a functional of the external potential. We discuss how approximations, Tsapp[v], of the noninteracting kinetic energy functional can be exploited for interacting systems. Two possibilities are discussed: (a) Via an adiabatic connection formula, Tsapp[v0] can be used directly with the external potential v0 of the interacting system, and (b) by employing the variational principle of density functional theory, the kinetic energy functional Tsapp[vs] is evaluated at the Kohn−Sham potential vs, which, in turn, is determined by an iterative procedure. Advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches are discussed.

Coordinate scaling in time-dependent current-density-functional theory

The coupling-constant dependence is derived in time-dependent current-density-functional theory. The scaling relation can be used to check approximate functionals and in conjunction with the adiabatic connection formula to obtain the ground-state energy from the exchange-correlation kernel. The result for the uniform gas using the Vignale-Kohn approximation is deduced.

Susceptibility model for the homogeneous electron gas

We calculate the exchange-correlation energy of the homogeneous electron gas using the adiabatic connection formula and a simple model for the susceptibility. The exact exchange energy is recovered and a formula is obtained for the correlation energy, which is in good agreement with previous results. This approach is meant to be a starting point for obtaining a charge-conserving energy functional suitable for describing inhomogeneous systems.

Scaling the spin densities separately in density-functional theory

Coordinate scaling of each spin density separately is considered in spin-density-functional theory. A virial theorem relates the spin-scaled correlation energy to the spin-scaled correlation potentials. An adiabatic connection formula expresses energies at different spin interaction strengths in terms of spin scaling. Several popular approximate functionals are evaluated on the spin-scaled densities of atoms and of the uniform electron gas. The differences between this and uniform scaling are discussed.

A new correlation functional based on analysis of the Colle–Salvetti functional

The behavior of the Colle–Salvetti (CS) correlation functional based on the Hartree–Fock (HF) second-order density matrix is investigated in the case of the He atom. The analysis of the correlation hole and energy contributions show that correlation effects are not taken into account appropriately due to the missing kinetic correlation. The CS final simplified energy expression also has some problems. To address these problems, we have constructed a new correlation functional based on the HF second-order density matrix including the effects of not only electron–electron interaction but also the kinetic energy by using an adiabatic connection formula. In addition, correlation effects for opposite and parallel spins are treated independently. This functional reproduces accurate correlation energies for H–Ar atoms. Combining it with the Becke 1988 exchange functional, we get reasonable atomization energies for the G2 set.

New τ-dependent correlation functional combined with a modified Becke exchange

A new correlation functional is derived within the Kohn–Sham (KS) Density Functional Theory (DFT) involving the electron kinetic energy density τ and the Laplacian of the electron density as key nonlocal variables. The derivation is based on a direct resolution of the adiabatic connection formula and using an analogy with the local thermodynamic approach in DFT, following the Lap3 theory developed previously. Compared to the latter, the new functional involves higher order τ-dependent energy terms in a form suggesting a possible resummation procedure that could be used for further development. It is combined with the nonlocal exchange functional of Becke, by modifying the latter in an empirical fashion to achieve better synchronization between the two energy components. The resulting exchange-correlation scheme (named “Bmτ1”) is validated on several test systems known as difficult for DFT, at least at the Local Spin Density and Generalized Gradient Approximation levels. The recent nonempirical hybrid scheme PBE1PBE (“PBE0”) is included in the comparative tests as a parameter-free benchmark for the hybrid HF-KS DFT approach. Improved results for relative energies, activation barriers and equilibrium geometries are obtained with the Bmτ1 functional, particularly concerning aromatic compounds, systems with weak hydrogen bonds, proton transfer processes and transition-metal carbonyls.

Toward the description of van der Waals interactions within density functional theory

On the basis of the adiabatic connection formula we propose several approximations for the total correlation energy functional, which, in the limit of two separated neutral subsystems, correctly reproduce the van der Waals R−6 behavior. We have calculated the corresponding van der Waals coefficients as well as total correlation energies, thus demonstrating the feasibility of a “seamless” functional. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Comput Chem 20: 12–22, 1999