arXiv subjects

Eduard Matito

Publications and source records attributed to Eduard Matito.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Towards more accurate natural orbital functional approximations: including 4-index cumulant contributions

Accurate modeling of bond breaking remains a central challenge for reduced density matrix functional theory (RDMFT). Although some modern functionals can yield reasonably accurate dissociation energies, they often fail to reproduce key properties of the dissociated fragments, such as a vanishing fragment population covariance (also known as the delocalization index) and the correct total spin angular momentum of each fragment (local spin). In this work, we revisit the construction of natural orbital functionals by correcting the cumulant contribution produced by the PNOF5 functional. Our method enforces known contributions of the cumulant to local spin fragments and the delocalization index at the dissociation limit. We obtain the closest cumulant consistent with these physically motivated constraints and subsequently purify the corresponding one- and two-electron reduced density matrices by imposing the standard $P, Q, \text{and } G$ $N$-representability conditions. The resulting functional yields improved behavior in strongly correlated regimes. Benchmarking on the dissociation of the singlet states of \ce{N2}, \ce{NO+}, \ce{O2}, \ce{S2}, and \ce{CO} shows that in the dissociation regime the energies computed from the updated cumulant exactly reproduce the complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) energies. We further analyze the limitations of the approach and identify scenarios in which the current approach performs poorly. This work provides a pathway for systematically improving natural orbital functionals to achieve reliable bond-breaking calculations within RDMFT.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Chemical bonding concepts emerge naturally from maximally entangled atomic orbitals

Chemical bonding is a nonlocal phenomenon that binds atoms into molecules. Its ubiquitous presence in chemistry, however, stands in stark contrast to its ambiguous definition and the lack of a universal perspective for its understanding. In this work, we rationalize and characterize chemical bonding through the lens of an equally nonlocal concept from quantum information, the orbital entanglement. We introduce maximally entangled atomic orbitals (MEAOs) whose entanglement pattern is shown to recover both Lewis (two-center) and beyond-Lewis (multicenter) structures, with multipartite entanglement serving as a comprehensive index of bond strength. Our unifying framework for bonding analyses is effective not only for equilibrium geometries but also for transition states in chemical reactions and complex phenomena such as aromaticity. It also has the potential to elevate the Hilbert space atomic partitioning to match the prevalent real-space partitioning in the theory of atoms in molecules. Accordingly, our work provides a new framework for understanding fuzzy chemical concepts using rigorous, quantitative descriptors from quantum information.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Range separation of the Coulomb hole

A range-separation of the Coulomb hole into two components, one of them being predominant at long interelectronic separations (hcI ) and the other at short distances (hcII ), is exhaustively analyzed throughout various examples that put forward the most relevant features of this approach and how they can be used to develop efficient ways to capture electron correlation. We show that hcI , which only depends on the first-order reduced density matrix, can be used to identify molecules with a predominant nondynamic correlation regime and differentiate between two types of nondynamic correlation, types A and B. Through the asymptotic properties of the hole components, we explain how hcI can retrieve the long-range part of electron correlation. We perform an exhaustive analysis of the hydrogen molecule in a minimal basis set, dissecting the hole contributions into spin components. We also analyze the simplest molecule presenting a dispersion interaction and how hcII helps identify it. The study of several atoms in different spin states reveals that the Coulomb hole components distinguish correlation regimes that are not apparent from the entire hole. The results of this work hold the promise to aid in developing new electronic structure methods that efficiently capture electron correlation.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

The Coulomb Hole of the Ne atom

We analyze the Coulomb hole of Ne from highly-accurate CISD wave functions obtained from optimized even-tempered basis sets. Using a two-fold extrapolation procedure we obtain highly accurate results that recover 97\% of the correlation energy. We confirm the existence of a shoulder in the short-range region of the Coulomb hole of the Ne atom, which is due to an internal reorganization of the $K$-shell caused by electron correlation of the core electrons. The feature is very sensitive to the quality of the basis set in the core region and it is not exclusive to Ne, being also present in most of second-row atoms, thus confirming that it is due to $K$-shell correlation effects.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

Partition of Optical Properties Into Orbital Contributions

Nonlinear optical properties (NLOPs) play a major role in photonics, electro-optics and optoelectronics, and other fields of modern optics. The design of new NLO molecules and materials has benefited from the development of computational tools to analyze the relationship between the electronic structure of molecules and its optical response. In this paper, we present a new means to analyze the response property through the partition of NLOPs in terms of orbital contributions (PNOC). This tool can be used to obtain a local representation of the NLOPs, providing a powerful visualization aid to connect the magnitude of the optical property with some parts of the molecule. Unlike other methods to analyze NLOPs, the PNOC decomposes the optical property into orbitals of the unperturbed system, furnishing this method with the ability to assess the performance of single- and multi-determinant electronic structure methods. PNOC can be also used to design small basis sets for an accurate description of large systems, saving a substantial amount of computer time for the calculation of optical properties.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

Singling Out Dynamic and Nondynamic Correlation

The correlation part of the pair density is separated into two components, one of them being predominant at short electronic ranges and the other at long ranges. The analysis of the intracular part of these components permits to classify molecular systems according to the prevailing correlation: dynamic or nondynamic. The study of the long-range asymptotics reveals the key component of the pair density that is responsible for the description of London dispersion forces and a universal decay with the interelectronic distance. The natural range-separation, the identification of the dispersion forces, and the kind of predominant correlation type that arise from this analysis are expected to be important assets in the development of new electronic structure methods in wave function, density, and reduced density-matrix functional theories.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

Local descriptors of dynamic and nondynamic correlation

Quantitatively accurate electronic structure calculations rely on the proper description of electron correlation. A judicious choice of the approximate quantum chemistry method depends upon the importance of dynamic and nondynamic correlation, which is usually assessed by scalar measures. Existing measures of electron correlation do not consider separately the regions of the Cartesian space where dynamic or nondynamic correlation are most important. We introduce real-space descriptors of dynamic and nondynamic electron correlation that admit orbital decomposition. Integration of the local descriptors yields global numbers that can be used to quantify dynamic and nondynamic correlation. Illustrative examples over different chemical systems with varying electron correlation regimes are used to demonstrate the capabilities of the local descriptors. Since the expressions only require orbitals and occupation numbers, they can be readily applied in the context of local correlation methods, hybrid methods, density matrix functional theory and fractional-occupancy density functional theory.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2017

Salient Signature of van der Waals Interactions

van der Waals interactions govern the physics of a plethora of molecular structures. It is well known that the leading term in the distance-based London expansion of the van der Waals energy for atomic and molecular dimers decays as $1/R^6$, where $R$ is the dimer distance. Using perturbation theory, we find the leading term in the distance-based expansion of the intracule pair density at the interatomic distance. Our results unveil a universal $1/R^3$ decay, which is less prone to numerical errors than the $1/R^6$ dependency, and it is confirmed numerically in H$_2$ and He$_2$ molecules. This \textit{signature} of van der Waals interactions can be directly used in the construction of approximate pair density and energy functionals including vdW corrections.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2016

Separation of Dynamic and Nondynamic Correlation

The account of electron correlation and its efficient separation into dynamic and nondynamic parts plays a key role in the development of computational methods. In this paper we suggest a physically-sound matrix formulation to split electron correlation into dynamic and nondynamic parts using the two-particle cumulant matrix and a measure of the deviation from idempotency of the first-order density matrix. These matrices are applied to a two-electron model, giving rise to a simplified electron correlation index that ($i$) depends only on natural orbitals and their occupancies, ($ii$) can be straightforwardly decomposed into orbital contributions and ($iii$) splits into dynamic and nondynamic correlation parts that ($iv$) admit a local version. These expressions are shown to account for dynamic and nondynamic correlation in a variety of systems containing different electron correlation regimes, thus providing the first separation of dynamic and nondynamic correlation using solely natural orbital occupancies.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2016

Fermi and Coulomb correlation effects upon the interacting quantum atoms energy partition

The Interacting Quantum Atoms (IQA) electronic energy partition is an important method in the field of quantum chemical topology which has given important insights of different systems and processes in physical chemistry. There have been several attempts to include Electron Correlation (EC) in the IQA approach, for example, through DFT and Hartree-Fock/Coupled-Cluster (HF/CC) transition densities. This work addresses the separation of EC in Fermi and Coulomb correlation and its effect upon the IQA analysis by taking into account spin-dependent one- and two-electron matrices $D^{\mathrm{HF/CC}}_{pσq σ}$ and $d^{\mathrm{HF/CC}}_{pσqσrτsτ}$ wherein $σ$ and $τ$ represent either of the $α$ and $β$ spin projections. We illustrate this approach by considering BeH$_2$,BH, CN$^-$, HF, LiF, NO$^+$, LiH, H$_2$O$\cdots$H$_2$O and C$_2$H$_2$, which comprise non-polar covalent, polar covalent, ionic and hydrogen bonded systems. The same and different spin contributions to ($i$) the net, interaction and exchange-correlation IQA energy components and ($ii$) delocalisation indices defined in the quantum theory of atoms in molecules are carefully examined and discussed. Overall, we expect that this kind of analysis will yield important insights about Fermi and Coulomb correlation in covalent bonding, intermolecular interactions and electron delocalisation in physical chemistry.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2016

Exact Exchange-Correlation Functional for the Infinitely Stretched Hydrogen Molecule

The exchange-correlation hole density of the infinitely stretched (dissociated) hydrogen molecule can be cast into a closed analytical form by using its exact wave function. This permits to obtain an explicit exchange-correlation energy functional of the electron density which allows for its functional derivation to yield the corresponding Kohh-Sham effective exchange-correlation potential. We have shown that this exchange-correlation functional is exact for the dissociated hydrogen molecule, yields its dissociation energy correctly, and its corresponding exchange-correlation potential has the correct $-1/r$ asymptotic behavior.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2015

Electronic Aromaticity Index for Large Rings

We introduce a new electronic aromaticity index, AV1245, consisting in the average of the 4-center MCI values along the ring that keep a positional relationship of 1,2,4,5. AV1245 measures the extent of transferability of the delocalized electrons between bonds 1-2 and 4-5, which is expected to be large in conjugated circuits and, therefore, in aromatic molecules. A new algorithm for the calculation of MCI for large rings is also introduced and used to produce the data for the calibration of the new aromaticity index. AV1245 does not rely on reference values, does not suffer from large numerical precision errors, and it does not present any limitation on the nature of atoms, the molecular geometry or the level of calculation. It is a size-extensive measure with a small computational cost that grows linearly with the number of ring members. Therefore, it is specially suitable to study the aromaticity of large molecular rings as those occurring in belt-shaped Möbius structures or porphyrins.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2015

Robust Validation Of Approximate 1-Matrix Functionals With Few-Electron Harmonium Atoms

A simple comparison between the exact and approximate correlation components U of the electron-electron repulsion energy of several states of few-electron harmonium atoms with varying confinement strengths provides a superior validation tool for 1-matrix functionals. The robustness of this tool is clearly demonstrated in a survey of 14 known functionals, which reveals their substandard performance within different electron correlation regimes. Unlike spot-testing that employs dissociation curves of diatomic molecules or more extensive benchmarking against experimental atomization energies of molecules comprising one of standard sets, the present approach not only uncovers the flaws and patent failures of the functionals but, even more importantly, allows for pinpointing their root causes. Since the approximate values of U are computed at exact 1-densities, the testing requires minimal programming, and thus is particularly useful in quick screening of new functionals.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2015

Bonding Description of the Harpoon Mechanism

The lowest-lying states of LiH have been widely used to develop and calibrate many different methods in quantum mechanics. In this paper we show that the electron-transfer processes occurring in these two states are a difficult test for chemical bonding descriptors and can be used to assess new bonding descriptors on its ability to recognize the harpoon mechanism. To this aim, we study the bond formation mechanism in a series of diatomic molecules. In all studied electron-reorganization mechanisms, the maximal electron-transfer variation point along the bond formation path occurs when about half electron has been transferred from one atom to another. If the process takes places through a harpoon mechanism, this point of the reaction path coincides with the avoided crossing. The electron sharing indices and one-dimensional plots of the electron localization function and the Laplacian of the electron density along the molecular axis can be used to monitor the bond formation in diatomics and provide a distinction between the harpoon mechanism and a regular electron-reorganization process.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2015

H$_4$: A Challenging System For Natural Orbital Functional Approximations

The correct description of nondynamic correlation by electronic structure methods not belonging to the multireference family is a challenging issue. The transition of $D_{2h}$ to $D_{4h}$ symmetry in H$_4$ molecule is among the most simple archetypal examples to illustrate the consequences of missing nondynamic correlation effects. The resurge of interest in density matrix functional methods has brought several new methods including the family of Piris Natural Orbital Functionals (PNOF). In this work we compare PNOF5 and PNOF6, which include nondynamic electron correlation effects to some extent, with other standard ab initio methods in the H$_4$ $D_{4h}/D_{2h}$ potential energy surface. Thus far, the wrongful behavior of single-reference methods at the $D_{2h}-D_{4h}$ transition of H$_4$ has been attributed to wrong account of nondynamic correlation effects, whereas in geminal-based approaches it has been assigned to a wrong coupling of spins and the localized nature of the orbitals. We will show that actually $\textit{interpair}$ nondynamic correlation is the key to a cusp-free qualitatively correct description of H$_4$ PES. By introducing $\textit{interpair}$ nondynamic correlation, PNOF6 is shown to avoid cusps and provide the correct smooth PES features at distances close to equilibrium, total and local spin properties along with the correct electron delocalization, as reflected by natural orbitals and multicenter delocalization indices.

physics.chem-ph↗