arXiv subjects

C. J. Umrigar

Publications and source records attributed to C. J. Umrigar.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Energy needed to propel a tiny spacecraft to Proxima Centauri,and, an unstated assumption in Einstein's 1905 paper

The Breakthrough Starshot project aims to send a tiny 2 gram spacecraft to Proxima Centauri propelled by a light sail and powerful Earth-based lasers. We provide two derivations of the laser energy required to propel the spacecraft and give the reader the opportunity to decide which one is correct before providing the answer. In the second part of this paper we point out that one of the formulae in Einstein's amazing 1905 paper is correct only in certain limits, but Einstein fails to mention that. This has caused some confusion in the Breakthrough Starshot literature.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2024

Reducing the time-step errors in diffusion Monte Carlo

We modify the reweighting factor of the projector used in diffusion Monte Carlo to reduce the time-step error of the total energy. Further, we present a reweighting scheme that has the desirable feature that it is exactly size-consistent, i.e, the energy of a system containing widely separated fragments is the same as the sum of the energies of the individual fragments. The practical utility of the latter improvement is that it reduces the time-step error of the binding energies of some weakly interacting systems.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2022

The chromium dimer: closing a chapter of quantum chemistry

The complex electronic structure and unusual potential energy curve of the chromium dimer have fascinated scientists for decades, with agreement between theory and experiment so far elusive. Here, we present a new ab initio simulation of the potential energy curve and vibrational spectrum that significantly improves on all earlier estimates. Our data support a shift in earlier experimental assignments of a cluster of vibrational frequencies by one quantum number. The new vibrational assignment yields an experimentally derived potential energy curve in quantitative agreement with theory across all bond lengths and across all measured frequencies. By solving this long-standing problem, our results raise the possibility of quantitative quantum chemical modeling of transition metal clusters with spectroscopic accuracy.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2021

Accurate energies of transition metal atoms, ions, and monoxides using selected configuration interaction and density-based basis-set corrections

The semistochastic heat-bath configuration interaction (SHCI) method is a selected configuration interaction plus perturbation theory method that has provided near-full configuration interaction (FCI) levels of accuracy for many systems with both single- and multi-reference character. However, obtaining accurate energies in the complete basis set limit is hindered by the slow convergence of the FCI energy with respect to basis size. Here we show that the recently developed basis-set correction method based on range-separated density-functional theory can be used to significantly speed up basis-set convergence in SHCI calculations. In particular, we study two such schemes that differ in the functional used, and apply them to transition metal atoms and monoxides to obtain total, ionization, and dissociation energies well converged to the complete-basis-set limit within chemical accuracy.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2021

Nonlocal pseudopotentials and time-step errors in diffusion Monte Carlo

We present a version of the T-moves approach for treating nonlocal pseudopotentials in diffusion Monte Carlo which has much smaller time-step errors than the existing T-moves approaches, while at the same time preserving desirable features such as the upper-bound property for the energy. In addition, we modify the reweighting factor of the projector used in diffusion Monte Carlo to reduce the time-step error. The latter is applicable not only to pseudopotential calculations but to all-electron calculations as well.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2021

Orbital Optimization in Selected Configuration Interaction Methods

We study several approaches to orbital optimization in selected configuration interaction plus perturbation theory (SCI+PT) methods, and test them on the ground and excited states of three molecules using the semistochastic heatbath configuration interaction (SHCI) method. We discuss the ways in which the orbital optimization problem in SCI resembles and differs from that in complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF). Starting from natural orbitals, these approaches divide into three classes of optimization methods according to how they treat coupling between configuration interaction (CI) coefficients and orbital parameters, namely uncoupled, fully coupled, and quasi-fully coupled methods. We demonstrate that taking the coupling into account is crucial for fast convergence and recommend two quasi-fully coupled methods for such applications: accelerated diagonal Newton and Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS).

physics.chem-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

Almost exact energies for the Gaussian-2 set with the semistochastic heat-bath configuration interaction method

The recently developed semistochastic heat-bath configuration interaction (SHCI) method is a systematically improvable selected configuration interaction plus perturbation theory method capable of giving essentially exact energies for larger systems than is possible with other such methods. We compute SHCI atomization energies for 55 molecules which have been used as a test set in prior studies because their atomization energies are known from experiment. Basis sets from cc-pVDZ to cc-pV5Z are used, totaling up to 500 orbitals and a Hilbert space of $10^{32}$ Slater determinants for the largest molecules. For each basis, an extrapolated energy well within chemical accuracy (1 kcal/mol or 1.6 mHa/mol) of the exact energy for that basis is computed using only a tiny fraction of the entire Hilbert space. We also use our almost exact energies to benchmark coupled-cluster [CCSD(T)] energies. The energies are extrapolated to the complete basis set limit and compared to the experimental atomization energies. The extrapolations are done both without and with a basis-set correction based on density-functional theory. The mean absolute deviations from experiment for these extrapolations are 0.46 kcal/mol and 0.51 kcal/mol, respectively. Orbital optimization methods used to obtain improved convergence of the SHCI energies are also discussed.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2020

Chemistry of the spin-1/2 kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet

We believe that a necessary first step in understanding the ground state properties of the spin-${\scriptstyle\frac{1}{2}}$ kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet is a better understanding of this model's very large number of low energy singlet states. A description of the low energy states that is both accurate and amenable for numerical work may ultimately prove to have greater value than knowing only what these properties are, in particular when these turn on the delicate balance of many small energies. We demonstrate how this program would be implemented using the basis of spin-singlet dimerized states, though other bases that have been proposed may serve the same purpose. The quality of a basis is evaluated by its participation in all the low energy singlets, not just the ground state. From an experimental perspective, and again in light of the small energy scales involved, methods that can deliver all the low energy states promise more robust predictions than methods that only refine a fraction of these states.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Accurate many-body electronic structure near the basis set limit: application to the chromium dimer

We describe a method for computing near-exact energies for correlated systems with large Hilbert spaces. The method efficiently identifies the most important basis states (Slater determinants) and performs a variational calculation in the subspace spanned by these determinants. A semistochastic approach is then used to add a perturbative correction to the variational energy to compute the total energy. The size of the variational space is progressively increased until the total energy converges to within the desired tolerance. We demonstrate the power of the method by computing a near-exact potential energy curve (PEC) for a very challenging molecule -- the chromium dimer.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2018

The electronic complexity of the ground-state of the FeMo cofactor of nitrogenase as relevant to quantum simulations

We report that a recent active space model of the nitrogenase FeMo cofactor, proposed in the context of quantum simulations, is not representative of the electronic structure of the FeMo cofactor ground-state. Although quantum resource estimates, outside of the cost of adiabatic state preparation, will not be much affected, conclusions should not be drawn from the complexity of classical simulations of the electronic structure of this system in this active space. We provide a different model active space for the FeMo cofactor that contains the basic open-shell qualitative character, which may be useful as a benchmark system for making classical and quantum resource estimates.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2017

Excited states using semistochastic heat-bath configuration interaction

We extend our recently-developed heat-bath configuration interaction (HCI) algorithm, and our semistochastic algorithm for performing multireference perturbation theory, to the calculation of excited-state wavefunctions and energies. We employ time-reversal symmetry, which reduces the memory requirements by more than a factor of two. An extrapolation technique is introduced to reliably extrapolate HCI energies to the Full CI limit. The resulting algorithm is used to compute the twelve lowest-lying potential energy surfaces of the carbon dimer using the cc-pV5Z basis set, with an estimated error in energy of 30-50 μHa compared to Full CI. The excitation energies obtained using our algorithm have a mean absolute deviation of 0.02 eV compared to experimental values. We also calculate the complete active-space (CAS) energies of the S0, S1, and T0 states of tetracene, which are of relevance to singlet fission, by fully correlating active spaces as large as 18 electrons in 36 orbitals.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Time-dependent linear-response variational Monte Carlo

We present the extension of variational Monte Carlo (VMC) to the calculation of electronic excitation energies and oscillator strengths using time-dependent linear-response theory. By exploiting the analogy existing between the linear method for wave-function optimisation and the generalised eigenvalue equation of linear-response theory, we formulate the equations of linear-response VMC (LR-VMC). This LR-VMC approach involves the first-and second-order derivatives of the wave function with respect to the parameters. We perform first tests of the LR-VMC method within the Tamm-Dancoff approximation using single-determinant Jastrow-Slater wave functions with different Slater basis sets on some singlet and triplet excitations of the beryllium atom. Comparison with reference experimental data and with configuration-interaction-singles (CIS) results shows that LR-VMC generally outperforms CIS for excitation energies and is thus a promising approach for calculating electronic excited-state properties of atoms and molecules.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2017

Semistochastic Heat-bath Configuration Interaction method: selected configuration interaction with semistochastic perturbation theory

We extend the recently proposed heat-bath configuration interaction (HCI) method [Holmes, Tubman, Umrigar, J. Chem. Theory Comput. 12, 3674 (2016)], by introducing a semistochastic algorithm for performing multireference Epstein-Nesbet perturbation theory, in order to completely eliminate the severe memory bottleneck of the original method. The proposed algorithm has several attractive features. First, there is no sign problem that plagues several quantum Monte Carlo methods. Second, instead of using Metropolis-Hastings sampling, we use the Alias method to directly sample determinants from the reference wavefunction, thus avoiding correlations between consecutive samples. Third, in addition to removing the memory bottleneck, semistochastic HCI (SHCI) is faster than the deterministic variant for many systems if a stochastic error of 0.1 mHa is acceptable. Fourth, within the SHCI algorithm one can trade memory for a modest increase in computer time. Fifth, the perturbative calculation is embarrassingly parallel. The SHCI algorithm extends the range of applicability of the original algorithm, allowing us to calculate the correlation energy of very large active spaces. We demonstrate this by performing calculations on several first row dimers including F2 with an active space of (14e, 108o), Mn-Salen cluster with an active space of (28e, 22o), and Cr2 dimer with up to a quadruple-zeta basis set with an active space of (12e, 190o). For these systems we were able to obtain better than 1 mHa accuracy with a wall time of merely 55 seconds, 37 seconds, and 56 minutes on 1, 1, and 4 nodes, respectively.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2015

Efficient heat-bath sampling in Fock space

We introduce an algorithm for sampling many-body quantum states in Fock space. The algorithm efficiently samples states with probability approximately proportional to an arbitrary function of the second-quantized Hamiltonian matrix element connecting the sampled state to the current state. We apply the new sampling algorithm to the recently-developed Semistochastic Full Configuration Interaction Quantum Monte Carlo method (S-FCIQMC), a semistochastic implementation of the power method for projecting out the ground state energy in a basis of Slater determinants. The heat-bath sampling requires modest additional computational time and memory compared to uniform sampling but results in newly-spawned weights that are approximately of the same magnitude, thereby greatly improving the efficiency of projection. A comparison in efficiency between uniform and approximate heat-bath sampling is performed on the all-electron nitrogen dimer at equilibrium in Dunning's cc-pVXZ basis sets with X in {D, T, Q, 5}, demonstrating a large gain in efficiency that increases with basis set size. In addition, a comparison in efficiency is performed on three all-electron first-row dimers, B_2, N_2, and F_2, in a cc-pVQZ basis, demonstrating that the gain in efficiency compared to uniform sampling also increases dramatically with the number of electrons.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Introduction to the variational and diffusion Monte Carlo methods

We provide a pedagogical introduction to the two main variants of real-space quantum Monte Carlo methods for electronic-structure calculations: variational Monte Carlo (VMC) and diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC). Assuming no prior knowledge on the subject, we review in depth the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm used in VMC for sampling the square of an approximate wave function, discussing details important for applications to electronic systems. We also review in detail the more sophisticated DMC algorithm within the fixed-node approximation, introduced to avoid the infamous Fermionic sign problem, which allows one to sample a more accurate approximation to the ground-state wave function. Throughout this review, we discuss the statistical methods used for evaluating expectation values and statistical uncertainties. In particular, we show how to estimate nonlinear functions of expectation values and their statistical uncertainties.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2014

Comparison of polynomial approximations to speed up planewave-based quantum Monte Carlo calculations

The computational cost of quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations of realistic periodic systems depends strongly on the method of storing and evaluating the many-particle wave function. Previous work [A. J. Williamson et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 246406 (2001); D. Alfè and M. J. Gillan, Phys. Rev. B 70, 161101 (2004)] has demonstrated the reduction of the O(N^3) cost of evaluating the Slater determinant with planewaves to O(N^2) using localized basis functions. We compare four polynomial approximations as basis functions -- interpolating Lagrange polynomials, interpolating piecewise-polynomial-form (pp-) splines, and basis-form (B-) splines (interpolating and smoothing). All these basis functions provide a similar speedup relative to the planewave basis. The pp-splines have eight times the memory requirement of the other methods. To test the accuracy of the basis functions, we apply them to the ground state structures of Si, Al, and MgO. The polynomial approximations differ in accuracy most strongly for MgO and smoothing B-splines most closely reproduce the planewave value for of the variational Monte Carlo energy. Using separate approximations for the Laplacian of the orbitals increases the accuracy sufficiently to justify the increased memory requirement, making smoothing B-splines, with separate approximation for the Laplacian, the preferred choice for approximating planewave-represented orbitals in QMC calculations.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2014

Spectroscopic accuracy directly from quantum chemistry: application to ground and excited states of beryllium dimer

We combine explicit correlation via the canonical transcorrelation approach with the density matrix renormalization group and initiator full configuration interaction quantum Monte Carlo methods to compute a near-exact beryllium dimer curve, {\it without} the use of composite methods. In particular, our direct density matrix renormalization group calculations produce a well-depth of $D_e$=931.2 cm$^{-1}$ which agrees very well with recent experimentally derived estimates $D_e$=929.7$\pm 2$~cm$^{-1}$ [Science, 324, 1548 (2009)] and $D_e$=934.6~cm$^{-1}$ [Science, 326, 1382 (2009)]], as well the best composite theoretical estimates, $D_e$=938$\pm 15$~cm$^{-1}$ [J. Phys. Chem. A, 111, 12822 (2007)] and $D_e$=935.1$\pm 10$~cm$^{-1}$ [Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 13, 20311 (2011)]. Our results suggest possible inaccuracies in the functional form of the potential used at shorter bond lengths to fit the experimental data [Science, 324, 1548 (2009)]. With the density matrix renormalization group we also compute near-exact vertical excitation energies at the equilibrium geometry. These provide non-trivial benchmarks for quantum chemical methods for excited states, and illustrate the surprisingly large error that remains for 1$^1Σ^-_g$ state with approximate multi-reference configuration interaction and equation-of-motion coupled cluster methods. Overall, we demonstrate that explicitly correlated density matrix renormalization group and initiator full configuration interaction quantum Monte Carlo methods allow us to fully converge to the basis set and correlation limit of the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation in small molecules.

physics.chem-ph↗