Projected site-occupation embedding theory

Site-occupation embedding theory (SOET) [B. Senjean et al., Phys. Rev. B 97, 235105 (2018)] is an in-principle exact embedding method combining wavefunction theory and density functional theory that gave promising results when applied to the one-dimensional Hubbard model. Despite its overall good performance, SOET faces a computational cost problem as its auxiliary impurity-interacting system remains the size of the full system (which is problematic as the computational cost increases exponentially with system size). In this work, this issue is circumvented by employing the Schmidt decomposition, thus leading to a drastic reduction of the computational cost while retaining the same accuracy. We show that this projected version of SOET (P-SOET) is competitive with other embedding techniques such as density matrix embedding theory (DMET) [G. Knizia and G. K-L. Chan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 186404 (2012)]. In contrast to the latter, density functional contributions come naturally into play in P-SOET's framework without any additional computational cost or double counting effect. As an important result, the density-driven Mott-Hubbard transition (which is displayed by multiple impurity sites in DMET or in dynamical mean-field theory) is well described, for the first time, with a single impurity site.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, 1 Tabl

N-centered ensemble density-functional theory for open systems

Two (so-called left and right) variants of N-centered ensemble density-functional theory (DFT) [Senjean and Fromager, Phys. Rev. A 98, 022513 (2018)] are presented. Unlike the original formulation of the theory, these variants allow for the description of systems with a fractional electron number. While conventional DFT for open systems uses only the true electron density as basic variable, left/right N-centered ensemble DFT relies instead on (i) a fictitious ensemble density that integrates to a central (integral) number N of electrons, and (ii) a grand canonical ensemble weight $\alpha$ which is equal to the deviation of the true electron number from N. Within such a formalism, the infamous derivative discontinuity that appears when crossing an integral number of electrons is described exactly through the dependence in $\alpha$ of the left and right N-centered ensemble Hartree-exchange-correlation density functionals. Incorporating N-centered ensembles into existing density-functional embedding theories is expected to pave the way towards the in-principle-exact description of an open fragment by means of a pure-state N-electron many-body wavefunction. Work is currently in progress in this directionComment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Site-Occupation Embedding Theory using Bethe Ansatz Local Density Approximations

Site-occupation embedding theory (SOET) is an alternative formulation of density-functional theory (DFT) for model Hamiltonians where the fully-interacting Hubbard problem is mapped, in principle exactly, onto an impurity-interacting (rather than a non-interacting) one. It provides a rigorous framework for combining wavefunction (or Green function) based methods with DFT. In this work, exact expressions for the per-site energy and double occupation of the uniform Hubbard model are derived in the context of SOET. As readily seen from these derivations, the so-called bath contribution to the per-site correlation energy is, in addition to the latter, the key density functional quantity to model in SOET. Various approximations based on Bethe ansatz and perturbative solutions to the Hubbard and single impurity Anderson models are constructed and tested on a one-dimensional ring. The self-consistent calculation of the embedded impurity wavefunction has been performed with the density matrix renormalization group method. It has been shown that promising results are obtained in specific regimes of correlation and density. Possible further developments have been proposed in order to provide reliable embedding functionals and potentials.Comment: Regular article with 14 pages including 6 figure

Recursive relations and quantum eigensolver algorithms within modified Schrieffer--Wolff transformations for the Hubbard dimer

We derive recursive relations for the Schrieffer--Wolff (SW) transformation applied to the half-filled Hubbard dimer. While the standard SW transformation is set to block-diagonalize the transformed Hamiltonian solely at the first order of perturbation, we infer from recursive relations two types of modifications, variational or iterative, that approach, or even enforce for the homogeneous case, the desired block-diagonalization at infinite order of perturbation. The modified SW unitary transformations are then used to design an test quantum algorithms adapted to the noisy and fault-tolerant era. This work paves the way toward the design of alternative quantum algorithms for the general Hubbard Hamiltonian

Linear interpolation method in ensemble Kohn-Sham and range-separated density-functional approximations for excited states

Gross-Oliveira-Kohn density functional theory (GOK-DFT) for ensembles is in principle very attractive, but has been hard to use in practice. A novel, practical model based on GOK-DFT for the calculation of electronic excitation energies is discussed. The new model relies on two modifications of GOK-DFT: use of range separation and use of the slope of the linearly-interpolated ensemble energy, rather than orbital energies. The range-separated approach is appealing as it enables the rigorous formulation of a multi-determinant state-averaged DFT method. In the exact theory, the short-range density functional, that complements the long-range wavefunction-based ensemble energy contribution, should vary with the ensemble weights even when the density is held fixed. This weight dependence ensures that the range-separated ensemble energy varies linearly with the ensemble weights. When the (weight-independent) ground-state short-range exchange-correlation functional is used in this context, curvature appears thus leading to an approximate weight-dependent excitation energy. In order to obtain unambiguous approximate excitation energies, we propose to interpolate linearly the ensemble energy between equiensembles. It is shown that such a linear interpolation method (LIM) can be rationalized and that it effectively introduces weight dependence effects. As proof of principle, LIM has been applied to He, Be, H$_2$ in both equilibrium and stretched geometries as well as the stretched HeH$^+$ molecule. Very promising results have been obtained for both single (including charge transfer) and double excitations with spin-independent short-range local and semi-local functionals. Even at the Kohn--Sham ensemble DFT level, that is recovered when the range-separation parameter is set to zero, LIM performs better than standard time-dependent DFT.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figure

A quantum advantage for Density Functional Theory ?

The technological revolution brought about by quantum computers promises to solve problems with high economical and societal impact that remain intractable on classical computers. While several quantum algorithms have been devoted to solve the many-body problem in quantum chemistry, the focus is on wavefunction theory that is limited to relatively small systems, even for quantum computers, i.e., the size of tractable systems being roughly limited by the number of qubits available. Computations on large systems rely mainly on mean-field-type approaches such as density functional theory, for which no quantum advantage has been envisioned so far. In this work, we question this a priori by investigating the benefit of quantum computers to scale up not only many-body wavefunction methods, but also mean-field-type methods, and consequently the all range of application of quantum chemistry.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Characterization of Excited States in Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory Using Localized Molecular Orbitals

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 which are localized in terms of the supermolecule, but delocalized over each subsystem composing the supermolecule. Using an orbital partitioning scheme based on such sets of localized orbitals, we further present a procedure for the construction of local excitations and charge-transfer states within the linear response framework of time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). This procedure provides direct access to approximate diabatic excitation energies and, under the Tamm--Dancoff approximation, also their corresponding electronic couplings -- quantities that are of primary importance in modelling energy transfer processes in complex biological systems. Our approach is compared with a recently developed diabatization procedure based on subsystem TDDFT using projection operators, which leads to a similar set of working equations. Although both of these methods differ in the general localization strategies adopted and the type of basis functions (Slaters vs. Gaussians) employed, an overall decent agreement is obtained