Methods for electronic-structure calculations - an overview from a reduced-density-matrix point of view

Progress toward the solution of the strongly correlated electron problem has been stymied by the exponential complexity of the wave function. Previous work established an exact two-body exponential product expansion for the ground-state wave function. By developing a reduced density matrix analogue of Dalgarno-Lewis perturbation theory, we prove here that (i) the two-body exponential product expansion is rapidly and globally convergent with each operator representing an order...

The extension of the density functional theory (DFT) to include pairing correlations without formal violation of the particle-number conservation condition is described. This version of the theory can be considered as a foundation of the application of existing DFT plus pairing approaches to atoms, molecules, ultracooled and magnetically trapped atomic Fermi gases, and atomic nuclei where the number of particles is exactly conserved. The connection with the Hartree-Fock-Bogol...

We evaluate the density matrix of an arbitrary quantum mechanical system in terms of the quantities pertinent to the solution of the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) problem. Our theory utilizes the adiabatic connection perturbation method of G\"{o}rling and Levy, from which the expansion of the many-body density matrix in powers of the coupling constant $\lambda$ naturally arises. We then find the reduced density matrix $\rho_\lambda({\bf r},{\bf r}',t)$, whi...

We describe recent progress in developing practical ab initio methods for which the computer effort is proportional to the number of atoms: linear scaling or O(N) methods. It is shown that the locality property of the density matrix gives a general framework for constructing such methods. We then describe our scheme, which operates within density functional theory. Efficient methods for reaching the electronic ground state are summarised, both for finding the density matrix, ...

In this review we provide a rigorous and self-contained presentation of one-body reduced density-matrix (1RDM) functional theory. We do so for the case of a finite basis set, where density-functional theory (DFT) implicitly becomes a 1RDM functional theory. To avoid non-uniqueness issues we consider the case of fermionic and bosonic systems at elevated temperature and variable particle number, i.e, a grand-canonical ensemble. For the fermionic case the Fock space is finite-di...

We compare two different approaches to investigations of many-electron systems. The first is the Hartree-Fock (HF) method and the second is the Density Functional Theory (DFT). Overview of the main features and peculiar properties of the HF method are presented. A way to realize the HF method within the Kohn-Sham (KS) approach of the DFT is discussed. We show that this is impossible without including a specific correlation energy, which is defined by the difference between th...

The LDA+DMFT method is a very powerful tool for gaining insight into the physics of strongly correlated materials. It combines traditional ab-initio density-functional techniques with the dynamical mean-field theory. The core aspects of the method are (i) building material-specific Hubbard-like many-body models and (ii) solving them in the dynamical mean-field approximation. Step (i) requires the construction of a localized one-electron basis, typically a set of Wannier funct...

During the past 15 years, the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) has become increasingly important for ab initio quantum chemistry. The underlying matrix product state (MPS) ansatz is a low-rank decomposition of the full configuration interaction tensor. The virtual dimension of the MPS controls the size of the corner of the many-body Hilbert space that can be reached. Whereas the MPS ansatz will only yield an efficient description for noncritical one-dimensional s...

We explore a new class of computationally feasible approximations of the two-body density matrix as a finite sum of tensor products of single-particle operators. Physical symmetries then uniquely determine the two-body matrix in terms of the one-body matrix. Representing dynamical correlation alone as a single tensor product results in a theory which predicts near zero dynamical correlation in the homogeneous electron gas at moderate to high densities. But, representing both ...

We present a method for calculating the spectrum of extended solids within reduced density matrix functional theory. An application of this method to the strongly correlated transition metal oxide series demonstrates that (i) an insulating state is found in the absence of magnetic order and, in addition, (ii) the interplay between the change transfer and Mott-Hubbard correlation is correctly described. In this respect we find that while NiO has a strong charge transfer charac...