On the equivalence of LIST and DIIS methods for convergence acceleration

Self-consistent field extrapolation methods play a pivotal role in quantum chemistry and electronic structure theory. We here demonstrate the mathematical equivalence between the recently proposed family of LIST methods [J. Chem. Phys. 134, 241103 (2011); J. Chem. Theory Comput. 7, 3045 (2011)] with Pulay's DIIS [Chem. Phys. Lett. 73, 393 (1980)]. Our results also explain the differences in performance among the various LIST methods

ROHF Theory Made Simple

Restricted open-shell Hartree-Fock (ROHF) theory is formulated as a projected self-consistent unrestricted HF (UHF) model by mathematically constraining spin density eigenvalues. The resulting constrained UHF (CUHF) wave function is identical to that obtained from Roothaan's effective Fock operator. Our $\alpha$ and $\beta$ CUHF Fock operators are parameter-free and have canonical orbitals and orbital energies that are physically meaningful as in UHF, except for eliminating spin contamination. The present approach removes ambiguities in ROHF orbital energies and the non-uniqueness of methods that build upon them. We present benchmarks to demonstrate CUHF physical correctness and good agreement with experimental results

A cluster-based mean-field and perturbative description of strongly correlated fermion systems. Application to the 1D and 2D Hubbard model

We introduce a mean-field and perturbative approach, based on clusters, to describe the ground state of fermionic strongly-correlated systems. In cluster mean-field, the ground state wavefunction is written as a simple tensor product over optimized cluster states. The optimization of the single-particle basis where the cluster mean-field is expressed is crucial in order to obtain high-quality results. The mean-field nature of the ansatz allows us to formulate a perturbative approach to account for inter-cluster correlations; other traditional many-body strategies can be easily devised in terms of the cluster states. We present benchmark calculations on the half-filled 1D and (square) 2D Hubbard model, as well as the lightly-doped regime in 2D, using cluster mean-field and second-order perturbation theory. Our results indicate that, with sufficiently large clusters or to second-order in perturbation theory, a cluster-based approach can provide an accurate description of the Hubbard model in the considered regimes. Several avenues to improve upon the results presented in this work are discussed.Comment: 22 pages, 21 figure

Spin-Projected Generalized Hartree-Fock as a Polynomial of Particle-Hole Excitations

The past several years have seen renewed interest in the use of symmetry-projected Hartree-Fock for the description of strong correlations. Unfortunately, these symmetry-projected mean-field methods do not adequately account for dynamic correlation. Presumably, this shortcoming could be addressed if one could combine symmetry-projected Hartree-Fock with a many-body method such as coupled cluster theory, but this is by no means straightforward because the two techniques are formulated in very different ways. However, we have recently shown that the singlet $S^2$-projected unrestricted Hartree-Fock wave function can in fact be written in a coupled cluster-like wave function: that is, the spin-projected unrestricted Hartree-Fock wave function can be written as a polynomial of a double-excitation operator acting on some closed-shell reference determinant. Here, we extend this result and show that the spin-projected generalized Hartree-Fock wave function (which has both $S^2$ and $S_z$ projection) is likewise a polynomial of low-order excitation operators acting on a closed-shell determinant, and provide a closed-form expression for the resulting polynomial coefficients. We include a few preliminary applications of the combination of this spin-projected Hartree-Fock and coupled cluster theory to the Hubbard Hamiltonian, and comment on generalizations of the methodology. Results here are not for production level, but a similarity transformed theory that combines the two offers the promise of being accurate for both weak and strong correlation, and particularly may offer significant improvements in the intermediate correlation regime where neither projected Hartree-Fock nor coupled cluster is particularly accurate.Comment: accepted by Phys. Rev.

Thermofield Theory for Finite-Temperature Quantum Chemistry

Thermofield dynamics has proven to be a very useful theory in high-energy physics, particularly since it permits the treatment of both time- and temperature-dependence on an equal footing. We here show that it also has an excellent potential for studying thermal properties of electronic systems in physics and chemistry. We describe a general framework for constructing finite temperature correlated wave function methods typical of ground state methods. We then introduce two distinct approaches to the resulting imaginary time Schrodinger equation, which we refer to as fixed-reference and covariant methods. As an example, we derive the two corresponding versions of thermal configuration interaction theory, and apply them to the Hubbard model, while comparing with exact benchmark results

Density Matrix Embedding from Broken Symmetry Lattice Mean-Fields

Several variants of the recently proposed Density Matrix Embedding Theory (DMET) [G. Knizia and G. K-L. Chan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 186404 (2012)] are formulated and tested. We show that spin symmetry breaking of the lattice mean-field allows precise control of the lattice and fragment filling while providing very good agreement between predicted properties and exact results. We present a rigorous proof that at convergence this method is guaranteed to preserve lattice and fragment filling. Differences arising from fitting the fragment one-particle density matrix alone versus fitting fragment plus bath are scrutinized. We argue that it is important to restrict the density matrix fitting to solely the fragment. Furthermore, in the proposed broken symmetry formalism, it is possible to substantially simplify the embedding procedure without sacrificing its accuracy by resorting to density instead of density matrix fitting. This simplified Density Embedding Theory (DET) greatly improves the convergence properties of the algorithm