arXiv subjects

Zhi-Hao Cui

Publications and source records attributed to Zhi-Hao Cui.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Self-consistent GW theory for superconductivity in SrTiO3 models

Superconductivity in doped SrTiO$_3$ occurs over a wide range of carrier densities, including those for which the Fermi energy is below the polar longitudinal optical phonon scale. In this regime, the assumptions underpinning conventional implementations of Migdal-Eliashberg theory, including frequency cutoffs at the phonon scale and a Coulomb pseudopotential $μ^\ast$, are not valid. We solve the finite-temperature $GW$ equations with full momentum and frequency dependence, without cutoffs or $μ^\ast$, for polar one-band models of SrTiO$_3$, using effective masses and three-phonon dielectric functions parameterized from ab initio calculations. Comparing different self-consistency levels, namely $G_0W_0$, $GW_0$, and fully self-consistent $GW$, we find that the one-shot ($G_0W_0$) kernel overestimates the pairing-onset temperature by one to two orders of magnitude. The dominant suppression comes from replacing $G_0$ by $G$, thereby incorporating the phonon renormalization factor in the electron Green function. Using the self-consistently computed interaction $W$ further lowers and narrows the pairing-onset dome. In the dilute limit, our calculations identify the pairing channel as the Fröhlich phonon interaction screened by the incipient ferroelectricity of the material, with plasmonic and electronic screening effects negligible. The numerical solution of the full equations reveals a pairing-onset scale that remains non-zero as the density tends to zero, whereas Fermi-surface projection or Fermi-energy frequency truncation removes it. This work highlights the relevance of incipient ferroelectricity, the importance of self-consistency, and the need for a full momentum- and frequency-dependent treatment in modeling superconductivity in SrTiO$_3$-like doped polar semiconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2026

Ab initio quantum embedding at finite temperature with density matrix embedding theory

We present a finite-temperature extension of density matrix embedding theory (FT-DMET) for realistic crystalline systems. We describe a practical framework for constructing extended bath orbitals, solving the embedding problem, and performing DMET self-consistency at finite temperature. To reduce computational cost, we introduce strategies based on mutual-information-guided bath truncation, controlled treatment of the thermal electron number without explicit optimization, and the use of low-temperature impurity solvers and one-shot FT-DMET in the low-temperature regime. We apply this approach to periodic hydrogen chains and square lattices to characterize their finite-temperature phases. We observe the Pomeranchuk-like effect in one dimension and enhanced stability of long-range order in two dimensions.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2026

The Python Simulations of Chemistry Framework: 10 years of an open-source quantum chemistry project

Over the past decade, the Python-based Simulations of Chemistry Framework (PySCF) has developed into a widely used open-source platform for electronic structure theory and quantum chemical method development. This article reviews the major advances since the previous overview in 2020, covering new modules and methodology, infrastructure changes, and performance benchmarks.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

Asymptotic Results for Spectrally Positive Compound Poisson Processes

Finite excursions away from zero of a spectrally positive compound Poisson process with a negative drift can always be decomposed into two parts lying above and below zero, respectively. This paper is concerned with the asymptotic relationships among the lengths and heights of these two parts. Our results state that both their lengths and heights are asymptotically strongly dependent and exhibit a scale symmetry.

math.PR↗

arXiv2025

Large Excursions of Reflected Lévy Processes: Asymptotic Shapes

This paper primarily investigates the geometric properties of excursions of Lévy processes reflected at the past infimum with long lifetime or large height. For an oscillating process in the domain of attraction of a stable law, our results state that excursions with a long lifetime need not have a large height. After a suitable scaling, they behave like stable excursions with lifetime or height greater than one. These extend the related results in Doney and Rivero [Prob. Theory Relat. Fields, 157(1) (2013) 1-45]. In contrast, for the negative-drift case we prove that under a heavy-tailed condition, long lifetime and large height are asymptotically equivalent. Conditioned on either event, excursions converge under spatial scaling to a single-jump process with Pareto-distributed jump size and size-biased jump time. Moreover, after a suitable time rescaling, the effect of the negative drift becomes apparent.

math.PR↗

arXiv2025

Towards an exact electronic quantum many-body treatment of Kondo correlation in magnetic impurities

The Kondo effect is a prototypical quantum phenomenon arising from the interaction between localized electrons in a magnetic impurity and itinerant electrons in a metallic host. Although it has served as the testing ground for quantum many-body methods for decades, the precise description of Kondo physics with material specificity remains challenging. Here, we present a systematic ab initio approach to converge towards an exact zero-temperature electronic treatment of Kondo correlations. Across a series of 3d transition metals, we extract Kondo temperatures matching the subtle experimental trends, with an accuracy exceeding that of standard models. We further obtain microscopic insight into the origin of these trends. More broadly, we demonstrate the possibility to start from fully ab initio many-body simulations and push towards the realm of converged predictions.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Charge Density Wave and Ferromagnetism in Intercalated CrSBr

In materials with one-dimensional electronic bands, electron-electron interactions can produce intriguing quantum phenomena, including spin-charge separation and charge density waves (CDW). Most of these systems, however, are non-magnetic, motivating a search for anisotropic materials where the coupling of charge and spin may affect emergent quantum states. Here, chemical intercalation of the van der Waals magnetic semiconductor CrSBr yields $Li_{0.17(2)} (tetrahydrofuran)_{0.26(3)} CrSBr$, which possess an electronically driven quasi-1D CDW with an onset temperature above room temperature. Concurrently, electron doping increases the magnetic ordering temperature from 132 K to 200 K and switches its interlayer magnetic coupling from antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic. The spin-polarized nature of the anisotropic bands that give rise to this CDW enforces an intrinsic coupling of charge and spin. The coexistence and interplay of ferromagnetism and charge modulation in this exfoliatable material provides a promising platform for studying tunable quantum phenomena across a range of temperatures and thicknesses.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Theory of interaction-induced charge order in CrSBr

CrSBr is a layered van der Waals insulator with a quasi one-dimensional electronic structure and in-plane ferromagnetic order. Recent experimental work on Li-doped CrSBr reveals quasi-1D charge modulated states. In this study, we develop ab initio effective models for CrSBr to investigate these states and solve them using mean-field theory and density matrix embedding theory. The models are parametrized using density functional theory, the constrained random phase approximation, and the Rytova-Keldysh form of the long-range Coulomb interaction. Our simulations indicate the emergence of a charge density wave state characterized by cosine-like intra-chain density modulations and inter-chain phase shifts that minimize the Coulomb repulsion. Notably, at a doping level corresponding to $1/n$ electron per CrSBr unit, the most stable pattern exhibits a periodicity of $n$ cells, in agreement with experimental observations and Peierls' instability arguments. Moreover, we demonstrate that the inter-chain order is sensitive to the range of Coulomb interactions. If the interaction is hard-truncated to a short-ranged form, some localized stripe-like states are computationally favored. This work provides an ab initio framework for understanding the interplay of competing electronic and magnetic phases in CrSBr and related materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Ab initio quantum many-body description of superconducting trends in the cuprates

Using a systematic ab initio quantum many-body approach that goes beyond low-energy models, we directly compute the superconducting pairing order and estimate the pairing gap of several doped cuprate materials and structures within a purely electronic picture. We find that we can correctly capture two well-known trends: the pressure effect, where the pairing order and gap increase with intra-layer pressure, and the layer effect, where the pairing order and gap vary with the number of copper-oxygen layers. From these calculations, we observe that the strength of superexchange and the covalency at optimal doping are the best descriptors for these trends. Our microscopic analysis further identifies that strong short-range spin fluctuations and multi-orbital charge fluctuations drive the development of the pairing order. Our work illustrates the possibility of a material-specific ab initio understanding of unconventional high-temperature superconducting materials.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2024

Coupling of Electronic Transitions to Ferroelectric Order in a 2D Semiconductor

A ferroelectric material often exhibits a soft transvers optical (TO) phonon mode which governs it phase transition. Charge coupling to this ferroelectric soft mode may further mediate emergent physical properties, including superconductivity and defect tolerance. However, direct experimental evidence for such coupling is scarce. Here we show that a photo-launched coherent phonon couples strongly to electronic transitions across the bandgap in the van der Waals (vdW) two-dimensional (2D) ferroelectric semiconductor NbOI2. Using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and first-principles calculations, we identify this mode as the TO phonon responsible for ferroelectric order. This exclusive coupling occurs only with above-gap electronic transition and is absent in the valence band as revealed by resonant inelastic X-ray scattering. Our findings suggest a new role of the soft TO phonon mode in electronic and optical properties of ferroelectric semiconductors.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Benchmarking the Exponential Ansatz for the Holstein model

Polarons are quasiparticles formed as a result of lattice distortions induced by charge carriers. The single-electron Holstein model captures the fundamentals of single polaron physics. We examine the power of the exponential ansatz for the polaron ground-state wavefunction in its coupled cluster, canonical transformation, and (canonically transformed) perturbative variants across the parameter space of the Holstein model. Our benchmark serves to guide future developments of polaron wavefunctions beyond the single-electron Holstein model.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Variational Lang-Firsov approach plus Møller-Plesset perturbation theory with applications to ab initio polariton chemistry

We apply the Lang-Firsov (LF) transformation to electron-boson coupled Hamiltonians and variationally optimize the transformation parameters and molecular orbital coefficients to determine the ground state. Møller-Plesset (MP-$n$, with $n = 2$ and $4$) perturbation theory is then performed on top of the optimized LF mean-field state to improve the description of electron-electron and electron-boson correlations. The method (LF-MP) is applied to several electron-boson coupled systems, including the Hubbard-Holstein model, diatomic molecule dissociation ($\text{H}_2$, $\text{HF}$), and the modification of proton transfer reactions (malonaldehyde and aminopropenal) via the formation of polaritons in an optical cavity. We show that with a correction for the electron-electron correlation, the method gives quantitatively accurate energies comparable to exact diagonalization or coupled-cluster theory. The effect of multiple photon modes, spin polarization, and the comparison to the coherent state MP theory are also discussed.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2023

Multireference protonation energetics of a dimeric model of nitrogenase iron-sulfur clusters

Characterizing the electronic structure of the iron--sulfur clusters in nitrogenase is necessary to understand their role in the nitrogen fixation process. One challenging task is to determine the protonation state of the intermediates in the nitrogen fixing cycle. Here, we use a dimeric iron--sulfur model to study relative energies of protonation at C, S or Fe. Using a composite method based on coupled cluster and density matrix renormalization group energetics, we converge the relative energies of four protonated configurations with respect to basis set and correlation level. We find that accurate relative energies require large basis sets, as well as a proper treatment of multireference and relativistic effects. We have also tested ten density functional approximations for these systems. Most of them give large errors in the relative energies. The best performing functional in this system is B3LYP, which gives mean absolute and maximum errors of only 10 and 13 kJ/mol with respect to our correlated wavefunction estimates, respectively. Our work provides benchmark results for the calibration of new approximate electronic structure methods and density functionals for these problems.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2023

Block2: a comprehensive open source framework to develop and apply state-of-the-art DMRG algorithms in electronic structure and beyond

Block2 is an open source framework to implement and perform density matrix renormalization group and matrix product state algorithms. Out-of-the-box it supports the eigenstate, time-dependent, response, and finite-temperature algorithms. In addition, it carries special optimizations for ab initio electronic structure Hamiltonians and implements many quantum chemistry extensions to the density matrix renormalization group, such as dynamical correlation theories. The code is designed with an emphasis on flexibility, extensibility, and efficiency, and to support integration with external numerical packages. Here we explain the design principles and currently supported features and present numerical examples in a range of applications.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2022

Is there evidence for exponential quantum advantage in quantum chemistry?

The idea to use quantum mechanical devices to simulate other quantum systems is commonly ascribed to Feynman. Since the original suggestion, concrete proposals have appeared for simulating molecular and materials chemistry through quantum computation, as a potential ``killer application''. Indications of potential exponential quantum advantage in artificial tasks have increased interest in this application, thus, it is critical to understand the basis for potential exponential quantum advantage in quantum chemistry. Here we gather the evidence for this case in the most common task in quantum chemistry, namely, ground-state energy estimation. We conclude that evidence for such an exponential advantage across chemical space has yet to be found. While quantum computers may still prove useful for quantum chemistry, it may be prudent to assume exponential speedups are not generically available for this problem.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2022

Systematic electronic structure in the cuprate parent state from quantum many-body simulations

The quantitative description of correlated electron materials remains a modern computational challenge. We demonstrate a numerical strategy to simulate correlated materials at the fully ab initio level beyond the solution of effective low-energy models, and apply it to gain a detailed microscopic understanding across a family of cuprate superconducting materials in their parent undoped states. We uncover microscopic trends in the electron correlations and reveal the link between the material composition and magnetic energy scales via a many-body picture of excitation processes involving the buffer layers. Our work illustrates a path towards a quantitative and reliable understanding of more complex states of correlated materials at the ab initio many-body level.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2022

On the pure state $v$-representability of density matrix embedding theory

Density matrix embedding theory (DMET) formally requires the matching of density matrix blocks obtained from high-level and low-level theories, but this is sometimes not achievable in practical calculations. In such a case, the global band gap of the low-level theory vanishes, and this can require additional numerical considerations. We find that both the violation of the exact matching condition and the vanishing low-level gap are related to the assumption that the high-level density matrix blocks are non-interacting pure-state $v$-representable (NI-PS-V), which assumes that the low-level density matrix is constructed following the Aufbau principle. In order to relax the NI-PS-V condition, we develop an augmented Lagrangian method to match the density matrix blocks without referring to the Aufbau principle. Numerical results for 2D Hubbard and hydrogen model systems indicate that in some challenging scenarios, the relaxation of the Aufbau principle directly leads to exact matching of the density matrix blocks, which also yields improved accuracy.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2020

Ground-state phase diagram of the three-band Hubbard model from density matrix embedding theory

We determine the ground-state phase diagram of the three-band Hubbard model across a range of model parameters using density matrix embedding theory. We study the atomic-scale nature of the antiferromagnetic (AFM) and superconducting (SC) orders, explicitly including the oxygen degrees of freedom. All parametrizations of the model display AFM and SC phases, but the decay of AFM order with doping is too slow compared to the experimental phase diagram, and further, coexistence of AFM and SC orders occurs in all parameter sets. The local magnetic moment localizes entirely at the copper sites. The magnetic phase diagram is particularly sensitive to $Δ_{pd}$ and $t_{pp}$, and existing estimates of the charge transfer gap $Δ_{pd}$ appear too large in so-called minimal model parametrizations. The electron-doped side of the phase diagram is qualitatively distinct from hole-doped side and we find an unusual two-peak structure in the SC in the full model parametrization. Examining the SC order at the atomic scale, within the larger scale $d_{x^2 - y^2}$-wave SC pairing order between Cu-Cu and O-O, we also observe a local $p_{x (y)}$ [or $d_{xz (yz)}$]-symmetry modulation of the pair density on the Cu-O bonds. Our work highlights some of the features that arise in a three-band versus one-band picture, the role of the oxygen degrees of freedom in new kinds of atomic-scale SC orders, and the necessity of re-evaluating current parametrizations of the three-band Hubbard model.

cond-mat.str-el↗