arXiv subjects

Ali Alavi

Publications and source records attributed to Ali Alavi.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Eliminating the wave function singularity for ultracold atoms by similarity transformation

A hyperbolic singularity in the wave-function of $s$-wave interacting atoms is the root problem for any accurate numerical simulation. Here we apply the transcorrelated method, whereby the wave-function singularity is explicitly described by a two-body Jastrow factor, and then folded into the Hamiltonian via a similarity transformation. The resulting non-singular eigenfunctions are approximated by stochastic Fock-space diagonalisation with energy errors scaling with $1/M$ in the number $M$ of single-particle basis functions. The performance of the transcorrelated method is demonstrated on the example of strongly correlated fermions with unitary interactions. The current method provides the most accurate ground state energies so far for three and four fermions in a rectangular box with periodic boundary conditions.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2020

The Adaptive Shift Method in Full Configuration Interaction Quantum Monte Carlo: Development and Applications

In a recent paper, we proposed the adaptive shift method for correcting the undersampling bias of the initiator-FCIQMC. The method allows faster convergence with the number of walkers to the FCI limit than the normal initiator method, particularly for large systems. In its application to strongly correlated molecules, however, the method is prone to overshooting the FCI energy at intermediate walker numbers, with convergence to the FCI limit from below. In this paper, we present a solution to the overshooting problem in strongly correlated molecules, as well as further accelerating convergence to the FCI energy. This is achieved by offsetting the reference energy to a value typically below the Hartree-Fock energy but above the exact energy. This offsetting procedure does not change the exactness property of the algorithm, namely convergence to the exact FCI solution in the large-walker limit, but at its optimal value greatly accelerates convergence. There is no overhead cost associated with this offsetting procedure, and is therefore a pure and substantial computational gain. We illustrate the behavior of this offset adaptive shift method by applying it to the N$_2$ molecule, the ozone molecule at three different geometries (equilibrium open minimum, a hypothetical ring minimum, and a transition state) in three basis sets (cc-pV$X$Z, $X$=D,T,Q), and the chromium dimer in cc-pVDZ basis set, correlating 28 electrons in 76 orbitals. We show that in most cases the offset adaptive shift method converges much faster than both the normal initiator method and the original adaptive shift method.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2020

The Ground State Electronic Energy of Benzene

We report on the findings of a blind challenge devoted to determining the frozen-core, full configuration interaction (FCI) ground state energy of the benzene molecule in a standard correlation-consistent basis set of double-$ζ$ quality. As a broad international endeavour, our suite of wave function-based correlation methods collectively represents a diverse view of the high-accuracy repertoire offered by modern electronic structure theory. In our assessment, the evaluated high-level methods are all found to qualitatively agree on a final correlation energy, with most methods yielding an estimate of the FCI value around $-863$ m$E_{\text{H}}$. However, we find the root-mean-square deviation of the energies from the studied methods to be considerable (1.3 m$E_{\text{H}}$), which in light of the acclaimed performance of each of the methods for smaller molecular systems clearly displays the challenges faced in extending reliable, near-exact correlation methods to larger systems. While the discrepancies exposed by our study thus emphasize the fact that the current state-of-the-art approaches leave room for improvement, we still expect the present assessment to provide a valuable community resource for benchmark and calibration purposes going forward.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2020

NECI: N-Electron Configuration Interaction with emphasis on state-of-the-art stochastic methods

We present NECI, a state-of-the-art implementation of the Full Configuration Interaction Quantum Monte Carlo algorithm, a method based on a stochastic application of the Hamiltonian matrix on a sparse sampling of the wave function. The program utilizes a very powerful parallelization and scales efficiently to more than 24000 CPU cores. In this paper, we describe the core functionalities of NECI and recent developments. This includes the capabilities to calculate ground and excited state energies, properties via the one- and two-body reduced density matrices, as well as spectral and Green's functions for ab initio and model systems. A number of enhancements of the bare FCIQMC algorithm are available within NECI, allowing to use a partially deterministic formulation of the algorithm, working in a spin-adapted basis or supporting transcorrelated Hamiltonians. NECI supports the FCIDUMP file format for integrals, supplying a convenient interface to numerous quantum chemistry programs and it is licensed under GPL-3.0.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2020

A comparative study using state-of-the-art electronic structure theories on solid hydrogen phases under high pressures

Identifying the atomic structure and properties of solid hydrogen under high pressures is a long-standing problem of high-pressure physics with far-reaching significance in planetary and materials science. Determining the pressure-temperature phase diagram of hydrogen is challenging for experiment and theory due to the extreme conditions and the required accuracy in the quantum mechanical treatment of the constituent electrons and nuclei, respectively. Here, we demonstrate explicitly that coupled cluster theory can serve as a computationally efficient theoretical tool to predict solid hydrogen phases with high accuracy. We present a first principles study of solid hydrogen phases at pressures ranging from 100 to 450 GPa. The computed static lattice enthalpies are compared to state-of-the-art diffusion Monte Carlo results and density functional theory calculations. Our coupled cluster theory results for the most stable phases including C2/c-24 and P21/c-24 are in good agreement with those obtained using diffusion Monte Carlo, with the exception of Cmca-4, which is predicted to be significantly less stable. We discuss the scope of the employed methods and how they can contribute as efficient and complementary theoretical tools to solve the long-standing puzzle of understanding solid hydrogen phases at high pressures.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Unbiasing the initiator approximation in Full Configuration Interaction Quantum Monte Carlo

We identify and rectify a crucial source of bias in the initiator FCIQMC algorithm. Non-initiator determinants (i.e. determinants whose population is below the initiator threshold) are subject to a systematic {\em undersampling} bias, which in large systems leads to a bias in the energy when an insufficient number of walkers is used. We show that the acceptance probability ($p_{acc}$), that a non-initiator determinant has its spawns accepted, can be used to unbias the initiator bias, in a simple and accurate manner, by reducing the applied shift to the non-initiator proportionately to $p_{acc}$. This modification preserves the property that in the large walker limit, when $p_{acc}\rightarrow1$, the unbiasing procedure disappears, and the initiator approximation becomes exact. We demonstrate that this algorithm shows rapid convergence to the FCI limit with respect to walker number, and furthermore largely removes the dependence of the algorithm on the initiator threshold, enabling highly accurate results to be obtained even with large values of the threshold. This is exemplified in the case of butadiene/ANO-L-pVDZ and benzene/cc-pVDZ, correlating 22 and 30 electrons in 82 and 108 orbitals respectively. In butadiene $5\times 10^7$ and in benzene $10^8$ walkers suffice to obtain an energy to within a milli-Hartree of the CCSDT(Q) result, in Hilbert spaces of $10^{26}$ and $10^{35}$ respectively. Essentially converged results require $\sim 10^8$ walkers for butadiene and $\sim 10^9$ walkers for benzene, and lie slightly lower than CCSDT(Q). Owing to large-scale parallelisability, these calculations can be executed in a matter of hours on a few hundred processors. The present method largely solves the initiator-bias problems that the initiator method suffered from when applied to medium-sized molecules.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2019

Small polarons and the Janus nature of $\text{TiO}_\text{2}(110)$

Polarons are ubiquitous in many semiconductors and have been linked with conductivity and optical response of materials for photovoltaics and heterogeneous catalysis, yet how surface polarons influence adsorption remains unclear. Here, by modelling the surface of rutile titania using density functional theory, we reveal the effect of small surface polarons on water adsorption, dissociation, and hydrogen bonding. On the one hand the presence of such polarons significantly suppresses dissociation of water molecules that are bonded directly to polaronic sites. On the other hand, polarons facilitate water dissociation at certain non-polaronic sites. Furthermore, polarons strengthen hydrogen bonds, which in turn affects water dissociation in hydrogen bonded overlayer structures. This study reveals that polarons at the rutile surface have complex, multi-faceted, effects on water adsorption, dissociation and hydrogen bonding, highlighting the importance of polarons on water structure and dynamics on such surfaces. We expect that many of the physical properties of surface polarons identified here will apply more generally to surfaces and interfaces that can host small polarons, beyond titania.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Efficient Formulation of Full Configuration Interaction Quantum Monte Carlo in a Spin Eigenbasis via the Graphical Unitary Group Approach

We provide a spin-adapted formulation of the Full Configuration Interaction Quantum Monte Carlo (FCIQMC) algorithm, based on the Graphical Unitary Group Approach (GUGA), which enables the exploitation of SU(2) symmetry within this stochastic framework. Random excitation generation and matrix element calculation on the Shavitt graph of GUGA can be efficiently implemented via a biasing procedure on the branching diagram. The use of a spin-pure basis explicitly resolves the different spin-sectors and ensures that the stochastically sampled wavefunction is an eigenfunction of the total spin operator $\hat{\mathbf S}^2$. The method allows for the calculation of states with low or intermediate spin in systems dominated by Hund's first rule, which are otherwise generally inaccessible. Furthermore, in systems with small spin gaps, the new methodology enables much more rapid convergence with respect to walker number and simulation time. Some illustrative applications of the GUGA-FCIQMC method are provided: computation of the $^2F-^4F$ spin gap of the cobalt atom in large basis sets, achieving chemical accuracy to experiment, and the $^1Σ_g^+$, $^3Σ_g^+$, $^5Σ_g^+$, $^7Σ_g^+$ spin-gaps of the stretched N$_2$ molecule, an archetypal strongly correlated system.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

Compact numerical solutions to the two-dimensional repulsive Hubbard model obtained via non-unitary similarity transformations

Similarity transformation of the Hubbard Hamiltonian using a Gutzwiller correlator leads to a non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonian, which can be expressed exactly in momentum-space representation, and contains three-body interactions. We apply this methodology to study the two-dimensional Hubbard model with repulsive interactions near half-filling in the intermediate interaction strength regime ($U/t=4$). We show that at optimal or near optimal strength of the Gutzwiller correlator, the similarity transformed Hamiltonian has extremely compact right eigenvectors, which can be sampled to high accuracy using the Full Configuration Interaction Quantum Monte Carlo (FCIQMC) method, and its initiator approximation. Near-optimal correlators can be obtained using a simple projective equation, thus obviating the need for a numerical optimisation of the correlator. The FCIQMC method, as a projective technique, is well-suited for such non-Hermitian problems, and its stochastic nature can handle the 3-body interactions exactly without undue increase in computational cost. The highly compact nature of the right eigenvectors means that the initiator approximation in FCIQMC is not severe, and that large lattices can be simulated, well beyond the reach of the method applied to the original Hubbard Hamiltonian. Results are provided in lattice sizes upto 50 sites and compared to auxiliary-field QMC. New benchmark results are provided in the off half-filling regime, with no severe sign-problem being encountered. In addition, we show that methodology can be used to calculate excited states of the Hubbard model and lay the groundwork for the calculation of observables other than the energy.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Similarity transformation of the electronic Schrödinger equation via Jastrow factorisation

By expressing the electronic wavefunction in an explicitly-correlated (Jastrow-factorised) form, a similarity-transformed effective Hamiltonian can be derived. The effective Hamiltonian is non-Hermitian and contains three-body interactions. The resulting ground-state eigenvalue problem can be solved projectively using a stochastic configuration-interaction formalism. Our approach permits use of highly flexible Jastrow functions, which we show to be effective in achieving extremely high accuracy, even with small basis sets. Results are presented for the total energies and ionisation potentials of the first-row atoms, achieving accuracy within a mH of the basis-set limit, using modest basis sets and computational effort.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

Are smooth pseudopotentials a good choice for representing short-range interactions?

When seeking a numerical representation of a quantum-mechanical multiparticle problem it is tempting to replace a singular short-range interaction by a smooth finite-range pseudopotential. Finite basis set expansions, e.g.~in Fock space, are then guaranteed to converge exponentially. The need to faithfully represent the artificial length scale of the pseudopotential, however, places a costly burden on the basis set. Here we discuss scaling relations for the required size of the basis set and demonstrate the basis set convergence on the example of a two-dimensional system of few fermions with short-range $s$-wave interactions in a harmonic trapping potential. In particular we show that the number of harmonic-oscillator basis functions needed to reach a regime of exponential convergence for a Gaussian pseudopotential scales with the fourth power of the pseudopotential length scale, which can be improved to quadratic scaling when the basis functions are re-scaled appropriately. Numerical examples for three fermions with up to a few hundred single-particle basis functions are presented and implications for the feasibility of accurate numerical multi-particle simulations of interacting ultra-cold atom systems are discussed.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2018

Accelerating the convergence of exact diagonalization with the transcorrelated method: Quantum gas in one dimension with contact interactions

Exact diagonalization expansions of Bose or Fermi gases with contact interactions converge very slowly due to a non-analytic cusp in the wave function. Here we develop a transcorrelated approach where the cusp is treated exactly and folded into the many-body Hamiltonian with a similarity transformation that removes the leading order singularity. The resulting transcorrelated Hamiltonian is not hermitian but can be treated numerically with a standard projection approach. The smoothness of the wave function improves by at least one order and thus the convergence rate for the ground state energy improves. By numerical investigation of a one-dimensional gas of spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ fermions we find the error in the transcorrelated energy to scale as $M^{-3}$ with a single-particle basis of $M$ plane waves compared to $M^{-1}$ for the expansion of the original Hamiltonian and $M^{-2}$ using conventional lattice renormalization.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2018

Correlation energies of the high-density spin-polarized electron gas to meV accuracy

We present a novel combination of quantum Monte Carlo methods and a finite size extrapolation framework with which we calculate the thermodynamic limit of the exact correlation energy of the polarized electron gas at high densities to meV accuracy, $-40.44(5)$ and $-31.70(4)$ mHa at $r_{\rm s}=0.5$ and $1$, respectively. The fixed-node error is characterized and found to exceed $1$ mHa, and we show that the magnitude of the correlation energy of the polarized electron gas is underestimated by up to $6$ meV by the Perdew-Wang parametrization, for which we suggest improvements.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Time propagation and spectroscopy of Fermionic systems using a stochastic technique

We present a stochastic method for solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, generalizing a ground-state full configuration interaction Quantum Monte Carlo method. By performing the time-integration in the complex plane close to the real time axis, the numerical effort is kept manageable and the analytic continuation to real frequencies is efficient. This allows us to perform {\it ab initio} calculation of electron spectra for strongly correlated systems. The method can be used as cluster solver for embedding schemes.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Non-linear biases, stochastically-sampled effective Hamiltonians and spectral functions in quantum Monte Carlo methods

In this article we study examples of systematic biases that can occur in quantum Monte Carlo methods due to the accumulation of non-linear expectation values, and approaches by which these errors can be corrected. We begin with a study of the Krylov-projected FCIQMC (KP-FCIQMC) approach, which was recently introduced to allow efficient, stochastic calculation of dynamical properties. This requires the solution of a sampled effective Hamiltonian, resulting in a non-linear operation on these stochastic variables. We investigate the probability distribution of this eigenvalue problem to study both stochastic errors and systematic biases in the approach, and demonstrate that such errors can be significantly corrected by moving to a more appropriate basis. This is lastly expanded to include consideration of the correlation function QMC approach of Ceperley and Bernu, showing how such an approach can be taken in the FCIQMC framework.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Interplay between electronic correlation and metal-ligand delocalization in the spectroscopy of transition metal compounds: case study on a series of planar Cu$^{2+}$ complexes

We present a comprehensive theoretical study of the physical phenomena that determine the relative energies of the three of the lowest electronic states of each of the square-planar copper complexes $\cucl$, $\cunh$ and $\cuwater$, and present a detailed analysis of the extent to which truncated configuration interaction (CI) and coupled cluster (CC) theories succeed in predicing the excitation energies. We find that ligand-metal charge transfer (CT) single excitations play a crucial role in the correct determination of the properties of these systems, even though the CT processes first occur at fourth order in perturbation theory, and propose a suitable choice of minimal active space for describing these systems with multi-reference theories. CCSD energy differences agree very well with near full CI values even though the $T_1$ diagnostics are large, which casts doubt on the usefulness of singles-amplitude based multi-reference diagnostics. CISD severely underestimates the excitation energies and the failure is a direct consequence of the size-inconsisency errors in CISD. Finally, we present reference values for the energy differences computed using explicitly correlated CCSD(T) and BCCD(T) theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

New superexchange paths due to breathing-enhanced hopping in corner-sharing cuprates

We present ab initio calculations of the superexchange antiferromagnetic spin coupling $J$ for two cuprates, Sr$_2$CuO$_3$ and La$_2$CuO$_4$. Good agreement with experimental estimates is obtained. We find that $J$ increases substantially as the distance between Cu and apical O is increased. There is an important synergetic effect of the Coulomb interaction, expanding the Cu $3d$ orbital when an electron hops into this orbital, and the O-Cu hopping, being increased by this orbital expansion (breathing). This is a new ingredient in superexchange models. In a model with a fixed basis, breathing effects can be described as a mixing of $3d$ and $4d$ orbitals or as a single $3d \to 4d$ excitation.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Combining the Transcorrelated method with Full Configuration Interaction Quantum Monte Carlo: application to the homogeneous electron gas

We suggest an efficient method to resolve electronic cusps in electronic structure calculations by using an effective transcorrelated Hamiltonian. This effective Hamiltonian takes a simple form for plane wave bases, containing up to two-body operators only, and its use incurs almost no additional computational overhead compared to that of the original Hamiltonian. We apply this method in combination with the full configuration interaction quantum Monte Carlo (FCIQMC) method to the homogeneous electron gas. As a projection technique, the non-Hermitian nature of the transcorrelated Hamiltonian does not cause complications or numerical difficulties for FCIQMC. The rate of convergence of the total energy to the complete basis set limit is improved from ${\cal O}(M^{-1})$ to ${\cal O}\left({M^{-5/3}}\right)$, where $M$ is the total number of orbital basis functions.

physics.comp-ph↗