Local Self-Energy Approach For Electronic Structure Calculations

Using a novel self-consistent implementation of Hedin's GW perturbation theory we calculate space and energy dependent self-energy for a number of materials. We find it to be local in real space and rapidly convergent on second-- to third-- nearest neighbors. Corrections beyond GW are evaluated and shown to be completely localized within a single unit cell. This can be viewed as a fully self consistent implementation of the dynamical mean field theory for electronic structure calculations of real solids using a perturbative impurity solver.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Construction of Localized Basis for Dynamical Mean Field Theory

Many-body Hamiltonians obtained from first principles generally include all possible non-local interactions. But in dynamical mean field theory the non-local interactions are ignored, and only the effects of the local interactions are taken into account. The truncation of the non-local interactions is a basis dependent approximation. We propose a criterion to construct an appropriate localized basis in which the truncation can be carried out. This involves finding a basis in which a functional given by the sum of the squares of the local interactions with appropriate weight factors is maximized under unitary transformations of basis. We argue that such a localized basis is suitable for the application of dynamical mean field theory for calculating material properties from first principles. We propose an algorithm which can be used for constructing the localized basis. We test our criterion on a toy model and find it satisfactory

Na Induced Correlations in Nax_xCoO2_2

Increasing experimental evidence is building which indicates that signatures of strong correlations are present in the Na rich region of Na$_x$CoO$_2$ (ie. $x\approx0.7$) and absent in the Na poor region (ie. $x\approx0.3$). This is unexpected given that NaCoO$_2$ is a band insulator and CoO$_2$ has an integer filled open shell making it a candidate for strong correlations. We explain these experimental observations by presenting a minimal low-energy Hamiltonian for the cobaltates and solving it within LDA+DMFT. The Na potential is shown to be a key element in understanding correlations in this material. Furthermore, LDA calculations for the realistic Na ordering predict a \emph{binary} perturbation of the Co sites which correlates with the Na$_1$ sites (ie. Na sites above/below Co sites)