Interacting Electrons, Spin Statistics, and Information Theory

We consider a nearly (or quasi) uniform gas of interacting electrons for which spin statistics play a crucial role. A previously developed procedure, based on the extension of the Levy–Lieb constrained search principle and Monte Carlo sampling of electron configurations in space, allows us to approximate the form of the kinetic-energy functional. For a spinless electron gas, this procedure led to a correlation term, which had the form of the Shannon entropy, but the resulting kinetic-energy functional does not satisfy the Lieb–Thirring inequality, which is rigorous and one of the most general relations regarding the kinetic energy. In this paper, we show that when the fermionic character of the electrons is included via a statistical spin approach, our procedure leads to correlation terms, which also have the form of the Shannon entropy and the resulting kinetic-energy functional does satisfy the Lieb–Thirring inequality. In this way we further strengthen the connection between Shannon entropy and electron correlation and, more generally, between information theory and quantum mechanics

Variational approach to dequantization

We present a dequantization procedure based on a variational approach whereby quantum fluctuations latent in the quantum momentum are suppressed. This is done by adding generic local deformations to the quantum momentum operator which give rise to a deformed kinetic term quantifying the amount of ``fuzzyness'' caused by such fluctuations. Considered as a functional of such deformations, the deformed kinetic term is shown to possess a unique minimum which is seen to be the classical kinetic energy. Furthermore, we show that extremization of the associated deformed action functional introduces an essential nonlinearity to the resulting field equations which are seen to be the classical Hamilton-Jacobi and continuity equations. Thus, a variational procedure determines the particular deformation that has the effect of suppressing the quantum fluctuations, resulting in dequantization of the system.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. v2: changes in presentation and conten

Path Integral Molecular Dynamics within the Grand Canonical-like Adaptive Resolution Technique: Simulation of Liquid Water

Quantum effects due to the spatial delocalization of light atoms are treated in molecular simulation via the path integral technique. Among several methods, Path Integral (PI) Molecular Dynamics (MD) is nowadays a powerful tool to investigate properties induced by spatial delocalization of atoms; however computationally this technique is very demanding. The abovementioned limitation implies the restriction of PIMD applications to relatively small systems and short time scales. One possible solution to overcome size and time limitation is to introduce PIMD algorithms into the Adaptive Resolution Simulation Scheme (AdResS). AdResS requires a relatively small region treated at path integral level and embeds it into a large molecular reservoir consisting of generic spherical coarse grained molecules. It was previously shown that the realization of the idea above, at a simple level, produced reasonable results for toy systems or simple/test systems like liquid parahydrogen. Encouraged by previous results, in this paper we show the simulation of liquid water at room conditions where AdResS, in its latest and more accurate Grand-Canonical-like version (GC-AdResS), is merged with two of the most relevant PIMD techniques available in literature. The comparison of our results with those reported in literature and/or with those obtained from full PIMD simulations shows a highly satisfactory agreement

Is there a third order phase transition for supercritical fluids?

We prove that according to Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations of liquid mixtures of Lennard-Jones (L-J) particles, there is no third order phase transition in the supercritical regime beyond Andrew's critical point. This result is in open contrast with recent theoretical studies and experiments which instead suggest not only its existence but also its universality regarding the chemical nature of the fluid. We argue that our results are solid enough to go beyond the limitations of MD and the generic character of L-J models, thus suggesting a rather smooth liquid-vapor thermodynamic behavior of fluids in supercritical regime.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

An analytic expression for the electronic correlation term of the kinetic functional

We propose an analytic formula for the non-local Fisher information functional, or electronic kinetic correlation term, appearing in the expression of the kinetic density functional. Such an explicit formula is constructed on the basis of well-founded physical arguments and a rigorous mathematical prescription

Adaptive Resolution Molecular Dynamics Simulation: Changing the Degrees of Freedom on the Fly

We present a new adaptive resolution technique for efficient particle-based multiscale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The presented approach is tailor-made for molecular systems where atomistic resolution is required only in spatially localized domains whereas a lower mesoscopic level of detail is sufficient for the rest of the system. Our method allows an on-the-fly interchange between a given molecule's atomic and coarse-grained level of description, enabling us to reach large length and time scales while spatially retaining atomistic details of the system. The new approach is tested on a model system of a liquid of tetrahedral molecules. The simulation box is divided into two regions: one containing only atomistically resolved tetrahedral molecules, the other containing only one particle coarse-grained spherical molecules. The molecules can freely move between the two regions while changing their level of resolution accordingly. The coarse-grained and the atomistically resolved systems have the same statistical properties at the same physical conditions.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, 5 table

On the upper bound of the electronic kinetic energy in terms of density functionals

We propose a simple density functional expression for the upper bound of the kinetic energy for electronic systems. Such a functional is valid in the limit of slowly varying density, its validity outside this regime is discussed by making a comparison with upper bounds obtained in previous work. The advantages of the functional proposed for applications to realistic systems is briefly discussed.Comment: 10 pages, no figure

Classical kinetic energy, quantum fluctuation terms and kinetic-energy functionals

We employ a recently formulated dequantization procedure to obtain an exact expression for the kinetic energy which is applicable to all kinetic-energy functionals. We express the kinetic energy of an N-electron system as the sum of an N-electron classical kinetic energy and an N-electron purely quantum kinetic energy arising from the quantum fluctuations that turn the classical momentum into the quantum momentum. This leads to an interesting analogy with Nelson's stochastic approach to quantum mechanics, which we use to conceptually clarify the physical nature of part of the kinetic-energy functional in terms of statistical fluctuations and in direct correspondence with Fisher Information Theory. We show that the N-electron purely quantum kinetic energy can be written as the sum of the (one-electron) Weizsacker term and an (N-1)-electron kinetic correlation term. We further show that the Weizsacker term results from local fluctuations while the kinetic correlation term results from the nonlocal fluctuations. For one-electron orbitals (where kinetic correlation is neglected) we obtain an exact (albeit impractical) expression for the noninteracting kinetic energy as the sum of the classical kinetic energy and the Weizsacker term. The classical kinetic energy is seen to be explicitly dependent on the electron phase and this has implications for the development of accurate orbital-free kinetic-energy functionals. Also, there is a direct connection between the classical kinetic energy and the angular momentum and, across a row of the periodic table, the classical kinetic energy component of the noninteracting kinetic energy generally increases as Z increases.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. To appear in Theor Chem Ac

Interacting electrons, spin statistics, and information theory

We consider a nearly (or quasi) uniform gas of interacting electrons for which spin statistics play a crucial role. A previously developed procedure, based on the extension of the Levy–Lieb constrained search principle and Monte Carlo sampling of electron configurations in space, allows us to approximate the form of the kinetic-energy functional. For a spinless electron gas, this procedure led to a correlation term, which had the form of the Shannon entropy, but the resulting kinetic-energy functional does not satisfy the Lieb–Thirring inequality, which is rigorous and one of the most general relations regarding the kinetic energy. In this paper, we show that when the fermionic character of the electrons is included via a statistical spin approach, our procedure leads to correlation terms, which also have the form of the Shannon entropy and the resulting kinetic-energy functional does satisfy the Lieb–Thirring inequality. In this way we further strengthen the connection between Shannon entropy and electron correlation and, more generally, between information theory and quantum mechanics

Exploring the conformational dynamics of alanine dipeptide in solution subjected to an external electric field: A nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulation

In this paper, we investigate the conformational dynamics of alanine dipeptide under an external electric field by nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulation. We consider the case of a constant and of an oscillatory field. In this context we propose a procedure to implement the temperature control, which removes the irrelevant thermal effects of the field. For the constant field different time-scales are identified in the conformational, dipole moment, and orientational dynamics. Moreover, we prove that the solvent structure only marginally changes when the external field is switched on. In the case of oscillatory field, the conformational changes are shown to be as strong as in the previous case, and non-trivial nonequilibrium circular paths in the conformation space are revealed by calculating the integrated net probability fluxes.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figure