arXiv subjects

Matthew R. Hermes

Publications and source records attributed to Matthew R. Hermes.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Multireference Density Matrix Embedding for Spin-Phonon Relaxation

Spin-phonon coupling governs magnetic relaxation in numerous systems including single-molecule magnets and molecular spin qubits. In most cases, the accurate prediction of spin relaxation rates requires multireference electronic structure methods, but their computational cost has largely restricted such calculations to isolated molecules. Here we show that spin-phonon relaxation rates can be computed within a multireference density matrix embedding framework. We apply the approach to three cobalt- and two dysprosium-based single-molecule magnets and to a cobalt-based molecular crystal. Across all systems, treating only the first coordination sphere of the magnetic center at the multireference level reproduces spin relaxation rates in good agreement with non-embedded CASSCF calculations while reducing the correlated problem to 10-68% of the total basis functions. Periodic calculations further demonstrate that spin relaxation rates can be computed for a molecular crystal using an embedded active space of only 259 basis functions out of a total of 2569. These results show that multireference density matrix embedding extends quantitative spin-phonon relaxation calculations from isolated molecules to molecular crystals.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Sample-based quantum diagonalization as parallel fragment solver for the localized active space self-consistent field method

Accurately and efficiently describing strongly correlated electronic systems is a central challenge in quantum computational chemistry, with classical and quantum computers. The localized active space self-consistent field method (LASSCF) uses a product of fragment active spaces as a variational space, with the Schrödinger equation solved exactly in each fragment and the fragment active-space orbitals defined in a self-consistent manner. LASSCF is accurate for systems with strong intra-fragment and weak inter-fragment correlation, and its computational cost is combinatorial with respect to the size of the individual fragment active spaces, rather than their product. However, exactly solving the Schrödinger equation in each fragment remains a substantial bottleneck. Here, we address the possibility of solving the fragment active space Schrödinger equation with approximate methods, particularly sample-based quantum diagonalization (SQD). SQD is a technique that uses a quantum computer to sample configurations from a chemically motivated quantum circuit and a classical computer to mitigate errors and solve the Schrödinger equation in a subspace of the configuration space. We apply the proposed method, LASSQD, to the [Fe(H$_2$O)$_4$]$_2$bpym$^{4+}$ compound and the [Fe$^{\mathrm{III}}$Fe$^{\mathrm{III}}$Fe$^{\mathrm{II}}$($μ$$_3$-O)-(HCOO)$_6$] complex for calculating the intermediate-spin ground state energies. We observe that LASSQD can tackle fragment sizes intractable by LASSCF, achieves within 1kcal/mol agreement to LASSCF, and delivers results that are competitive with alternative classical methods to solve the Schrödinger equation, and thus can be used as a starting point for a perturbative treatment (LASSQD-PDFT) to recover correlation external to the active space.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

MC-PDFT Nuclear Gradients and L-PDFT Energies with Meta and Hybrid Meta On-Top Functionals for Ground- and Excited-State Geometry Optimization and Vertical Excitation Energies

Multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory (MC-PDFT) is a post-MCSCF multireference electronic-structure method that explicitly models strong electron correlation, and linearized pair-density functional theory (L-PDFT) is a recently developed multi-state extension that can accurately model conical intersections and locally-avoided crossings. Because MC-PDFT and L-PDFT rely on an on-top energy functional, their accuracy depends on the quality of the on-top functional used. Recent work has introduced translated meta-gradient-approximation (meta-GA) on-top functionals, and specifically the MC23 hybrid meta-GA on-top functional, which is the first on-top functional specifically optimized for MC-PDFT. Here we report the derivation and implementation of analytic nuclear gradients for MC-PDFT calculations using meta-GA and hybrid meta-GA on-top functionals. This development also enables analytic nuclear gradients for the widely successful tPBE0 hybrid on-top functional. Because MC-PDFT nuclear-gradient calculations involve the derivative of the on-top functional, this development also enables the use of meta-GA on-top functionals in L-PDFT single-point energy calculations. We use the new capabilities to test MC23 for ground-state geometries, excited-state geometries, and vertical excitation energies of s-trans-butadiene and benzophenone as well as to test MC23, another hybrid meta-GA, and seven other meta-GA on-top functionals for 441 vertical excitation energies. We find MC23 performs the best of all nine meta and hybrid meta functionals for vertical excitation energies and is comparable in accuracy to tPBE0 and to the NEVPT2 multireference wave function method. Additionally, we directly compare our MC-PDFT vertical excitation results to previously computed TD-DFT values and find that MC-PDFT outperforms even the best performing Kohn-Sham density functional.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Multireference Embedding and Fragmentation Methods for Classical and Quantum Computers: from Model Systems to Realistic Applications

One of the primary challenges in quantum chemistry is the accurate modeling of strong electron correlation. While multireference methods effectively capture such correlation, their steep scaling with system size prohibits their application to large molecules and extended materials. Quantum embedding offers a promising solution by partitioning complex systems into manageable subsystems. In this review, we highlight recent advances in multireference density matrix embedding and localized active space self-consistent field approaches for complex molecules and extended materials. We discuss both classical implementations and the emerging potential of these methods on quantum computers. By extending classical embedding concepts to the quantum landscape, these algorithms have the potential to expand the reach of multireference methods in quantum chemistry and materials.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Enabling Multireference Calculations on Multi-Metallic Systems with Graphic Processing Units

Modeling multimetallic systems efficiently enables faster prediction of desirable chemical properties and design of new materials. This work describes an initial implementation for performing multireference wave function method localized active space self-consistent field (LASSCF) calculations through the use of multiple graphics processing units (GPUs) to accelerate time-to-solution. Density fitting is leveraged to reduce memory requirements, and we demonstrate the ability to fully utilize multi-GPU compute nodes. Performance improvements of 5-10x in total application runtime were observed in LASSCF calculations for multimetallic catalyst systems up to 1200 AOs and an active space of (22e,40o) using up to four NVIDIA A100 GPUs. Written with performance portability in mind, comparable performance is also observed in early runs on the Aurora exascale system using Intel Max Series GPUs.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2024

Distinguishing homolytic versus heterolytic bond dissociation of phenyl sulfonium cations with localized active space methods

Modeling chemical reactions with quantum chemical methods is challenging when the electronic structure varies significantly throughout the reaction, as well as when electronic excited states are involved. Multireference methods such as complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) can handle these multiconfigurational situations. However, even if the size of needed active space is affordable, in many cases the active space does not change consistently from reactant to product, causing discontinuities in the potential energy surface. The localized active space SCF (LASSCF) is a cheaper alternative to CASSCF for strongly correlated systems with weakly correlated fragments. The method is used for the first time to study a chemical reaction, namely the bond dissociation of a mono-, di-, and triphenylsulfonium cation. LASSCF calculations generate smooth potential energy scans more easily than the corresponding, more computationally expensive, CASSCF calculations, while predicting similar bond dissociation energies. Our calculations suggest a homolytic bond cleavage for di- and triphenylsulfonium, and a heterolytic pathway for monophenylsulfonium.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2024

The Localized Active Space Method with Unitary Selective Coupled Cluster

We introduce a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm, the localized active space unitary selective coupled cluster singles and doubles (LAS-USCCSD) method. Derived from the localized active space unitary coupled cluster (LAS-UCCSD) method, LAS-USCCSD first performs a classical LASSCF calculation, then selectively identifies the most important parameters (cluster amplitudes used to build the multireference UCC ansatz) for restoring inter-fragment interaction energy using this reduced set of parameters with the variational quantum eigensolver method. We benchmark LAS-USCCSD against LAS-UCCSD by calculating the total energies of $(\mathrm{H}_2)_2$, $(\mathrm{H}_2)_4$ and \textit{trans}-butadiene, and the magnetic coupling constant for a bimetallic compound [Cr$_2$(OH)$_3$(NH$_3$)$_6$]$^{3+}$. For these systems, we find that LAS-USCCSD reduces the number of required parameters and thus the circuit depth by at least one order of magnitude, an aspect which is important for the practical implementation of multireference hybrid quantum-classical algorithms like LAS-UCCSD on near-term quantum computers.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Automatic State Interaction with Large Localized Active Spaces for Multimetallic Systems

The localized active space self consistent field (LASSCF) method factorizes a complete active space (CAS) wave function into an antisymmetrized product of localized active space wave function fragments. Correlation between fragments is then reintroduced through LAS state interaction (LASSI), in which the Hamiltonian is diagonalized in a model space of LAS states. However, the optimal procedure for defining the LAS fragments and LASSI model space is unknown. We here present an automated framework to explore systematically convergent sets of model spaces, which we call LASSI[$r$,$q$]. This method requires the user to select only $r$, the number of electron hops from one fragment to another and $q$, the number of fragment basis functions per Hilbert space, which converges to CASCI in the limit of $r,q\to\infty$. Numerical tests of this method on the tri-metal complexes [Fe(III)Al(III)Fe(II)($μ_3$-O)]$^{6+}$ and [Fe(III)$_2$Fe(II)($μ_3$-O)]$^{6+}$ show efficient convergence to the CASCI limit with 4-10 orders of magnitude fewer states.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2024

Analytic Nuclear Gradients for Complete Active Space Linearized Pair-Density Functional Theory

Accurately modeling photochemical reactions is difficult due to the presence of conical intersections and locally avoided crossings as well as the inherently multiconfigurational character of excited states. As such, one needs a multi-state method that incorporates state interaction in order to accurately model the potential energy surface at all nuclear coordinates. The recently developed linearized pair-density functional theory (L-PDFT) is a multi-state extension of multiconfiguration PDFT, and it has been shown to be a cost-effective post-MCSCF method (as compared to more traditional and expensive multireference many-body perturbation methods or multireference configuration interaction methods) that can accurately model potential energy surfaces in regions of strong nuclear-electronic coupling in addition to accurately predicting Franck-Condon vertical excitations. In this paper, we report the derivation of analytic gradients for L-PDFT and their implementation in the PySCF-forge software, and we illustrate the utility of these gradients for predicting ground- and excited-state equilibrium geometries and adiabatic excitation energies for formaldehyde, s-trans-butadiene, phenol, and cytosine.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2023

State preparation in quantum algorithms for fragment-based quantum chemistry

State preparation for quantum algorithms is crucial for achieving high accuracy in quantum chemistry and competing with classical algorithms. The localized active space unitary coupled cluster (LAS-UCC) algorithm iteratively loads a fragment-based multireference wave function onto a quantum computer. In this study, we compare two state preparation methods, quantum phase estimation (QPE) and direct initialization (DI), for each fragment. We analyze the impact of QPE parameters, such as the number of ancilla qubits and Trotter steps, on the prepared state. We find a trade-off between the methods, where DI requires fewer resources for smaller fragments, while QPE is more efficient for larger fragments. Our resource estimates highlight the benefits of system fragmentation in state preparation for subsequent quantum chemical calculations. These findings have broad applications for preparing multireference quantum chemical wave functions on quantum circuits, particularly via QPE circuits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Localized Quantum Chemistry on Quantum Computers

Quantum chemistry calculations of large, strongly correlated systems are typically limited by the computation cost that scales exponentially with the size of the system. Quantum algorithms, designed specifically for quantum computers, can alleviate this, but the resources required are still too large for today's quantum devices. Here we present a quantum algorithm that combines a localization of multireference wave functions of chemical systems with quantum phase estimation (QPE) and variational unitary coupled cluster singles and doubles (UCCSD) to compute their ground state energy. Our algorithm, termed "local active space unitary coupled cluster" (LAS-UCC), scales linearly with system size for certain geometries, providing a polynomial reduction in the total number of gates compared with QPE, while providing accuracy above that of the variational quantum eigensolver using the UCCSD ansatz and also above that of the classical local active space self-consistent field. The accuracy of LAS-UCC is demonstrated by dissociating (H$_2$)$_2$ into two H$_2$ molecules and by breaking the two double bonds in trans-butadiene and resources estimates are provided for linear chains of up to 20 H$_2$ molecules.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Recent developments in the PySCF program package

PYSCF is a Python-based general-purpose electronic structure platform that both supports first-principles simulations of molecules and solids, as well as accelerates the development of new methodology and complex computational workflows. The present paper explains the design and philosophy behind PYSCF that enables it to meet these twin objectives. With several case studies, we show how users can easily implement their own methods using PYSCF as a development environment. We then summarize the capabilities of PYSCF for molecular and solid-state simulations. Finally, we describe the growing ecosystem of projects that use PYSCF across the domains of quantum chemistry, materials science, machine learning and quantum information science.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2020

The Variational Localized Active Space Self-Consistent Field Method

Fragmentation methods applied to multireference wave functions constitute a road towards the application of highly accurate ab initio wave function calculations to large molecules and solids. However, it is important for reproducibility and transferability that a fragmentation scheme be well-defined with minimal dependence on initial orbital guesses or user-designed ad hoc fragmentation schemes. One way to improve this sort of robustness is to ensure the energy obeys a variational principle; i.e., that the active orbitals and active space wave functions minimize the electronic energy in a certain ansatz for the molecular wave function. We extended the theory of the localized active space self-consistent field, LASSCF, method (JCTC 2019, 15, 972) to fully minimize the energy with respect to all orbital rotations, rendering it truly variational. The new method, called vLASSCF, substantially improves the robustness and reproducibility of the LAS wave function compared to LASSCF. We analyze the storage and operation cost scaling of vLASSCF compared to orbital optimization using a standard CASSCF approach and we show results of vLASSCF calculations on some simple test systems. We show that vLASSCF is energetically equivalent to CASSCF in the limit of one active subspace, and that vLASSCF significantly improves upon the reliability of LASSCF energy differences, allowing for more meaningful and subtle analysis of potential energy curves of dissociating molecules. We also show that all forms of LASSCF have a lower operation cost scaling than the orbital-optimization part of CASSCF.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

Periodic Electronic Structure Calculations With Density Matrix Embedding Theory

We extend density matrix embedding theory to periodic systems, resulting in an electronic band structure method for solid-state materials. The electron correlation can be captured by means of a local impurity model using various choices of wave function methods. The method is able to describe not only the ground-state energy but also the quasiparticle band picture via the real-momentum space implementation. We investigate the performance of periodic DMET in describing the ground-state energy as well as the electronic band structure for one-dimensional solids. Our results show that DMET are in good agreement with other many-body techniques at a cheaper computational cost. We anticipate that the periodic DMET can be a promising first principle method for strongly correlated materials.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Exactly-embedded multiconfigurational self-consistent field theory using density matrix embedding: the localized active space self-consistent field method

Density matrix embedding theory (DMET) is a fully quantum-mechanical embedding method which shows great promise as a method of defeating the inherent exponential cost scaling of multiconfigurational wave function-based calculations by breaking large systems into smaller, coupled subsystems. However, we recently [JCTC 2018, 14, 1960] encountered evidence that the single-determinantal bath picture inherent to DMET is sometimes problematic when the complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) is used as a solver and the method is applied to realistic models of strongly-correlated molecules. Here, we show this problem can be defeated by generalizing DMET to use a multiconfigurational wave function as a bath without sacrificing attractive features of DMET, such as a second-quantized embedded subsystem Hamiltonian, by dividing the active space into unentangled active subspaces each localized to one fragment. We introduce the term localized active space (LAS) to refer to this kind of wave function. We obtain the LAS wave function by the DMET algorithm itself self-consistently, and we name this approach the localized active space self-consistent field (LASSCF) method. LASSCF exploits a modified DMET algorithm, but it requires no ambiguous error function minimization, produces a wave function with exact embedding, is variational, and reproduces CASSCF where comparable DMET calculations fail. Our results for test calculations on the nitrogen double-bond dissociation potential energy curves of several diazene molecules suggest that LASSCF can be an appropriate starting point for a perturbative treatment. Outside of the context of embedding, LAS is an attractive alternative to a CAS wave function because its cost scaling is exponential only with respect to the size of individual fragment active subspaces, rather than the whole active space of the entire system.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2017

Combining symmetry collective states with coupled cluster theory: Lessons from the Agassi model Hamiltonian

The failures of single-reference coupled cluster for strongly correlated many-body systems is flagged at the mean-field level by the spontaneous breaking of one or more physical symmetries of the Hamiltonian. Restoring the symmetry of the mean-field determinant by projection reveals that coupled cluster fails because it factorizes high-order excitation amplitudes incorrectly. However, symmetry-projected mean-field wave functions do not account sufficiently for dynamic (or weak) correlation. Here we pursue a merger of symmetry projection and coupled cluster theory, following previous work along these lines that utilized the simple Lipkin model system as a testbed [J. Chem. Phys. 146, 054110 (2017)]. We generalize the concept of a symmetry-projected mean-field wave function to the concept of a symmetry projected state, in which the factorization of high-order excitation amplitudes in terms of low-order ones is guided by symmetry projection and is not exponential, and combine them with coupled cluster theory in order to model the ground state of the Agassi Hamiltonian. This model has two separate channels of correlation and two separate physical symmetries which are broken under strong correlation. We show how the combination of symmetry collective states and coupled cluster is effective in obtaining correlation energies and order parameters of the Agassi model throughout its phase diagram.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Merging symmetry projection methods with coupled cluster theory: Lessons from the Lipkin model Hamiltonian

Coupled cluster and symmetry projected Hartree-Fock are two central paradigms in electronic structure theory. However, they are very different. Single reference coupled cluster is highly successful for treating weakly correlated systems, but fails under strong correlation unless one sacrifices good quantum numbers and works with broken-symmetry wave functions, which is unphysical for finite systems. Symmetry projection is effective for the treatment of strong correlation at the mean-field level through multireference non-orthogonal configuration interaction wavefunctions, but unlike coupled cluster, it is neither size extensive nor ideal for treating dynamic correlation. We here examine different scenarios for merging these two dissimilar theories. We carry out this exercise over the integrable Lipkin model Hamiltonian, which despite its simplicity, encompasses non-trivial physics for degenerate systems and can be solved via diagonalization for a very large number of particles. We show how symmetry projection and coupled cluster doubles individually fail over different correlation limits, whereas models that merge these two theories are highly successful over the entire phase diagram. Despite the simplicity of the Lipkin Hamiltonian, the lessons learned in this work will be useful for building an ab initio symmetry projected coupled cluster theory that we expect to be accurate over the weakly and strongly correlated limits, as well as the recoupling regime.

cond-mat.str-el↗