No Arabic abstract
The aim of this review article is to assess the descriptive capabilities of the Hubbard-rooted LDA+U method and to clarify the conditions under which it can be expected to be most predictive. The paper illustrates the theoretical foundation of LDA+U and prototypical applications to the study of correlated materials, discusses the most relevant approximations used in its formulation, and makes a comparison with other approaches also developed for similar purposes. Open issues of the method are also discussed, including the calculation of the electronic couplings (the Hubbard U), the precise expression of the corrective functional and the possibility to use LDA+U for other classes of materials. The second part of the article presents recent extensions to the method and illustrates the significant improvements they have obtained in the description of several classes of different systems. The conclusive section finally discusses possible future developments of LDA+U to further enlarge its predictive power and its range of applicability.
The electronic structure and properties of PuO$_{2}$ and Pu$_{2}$O$_{3}$ have been studied from first principles by the all-electron projector-augmented-wave (PAW) method. The local density approximation (LDA)+$U$ and the generalized gradient approximation (GGA)+$U$ formalism have been used to account for the strong on-site Coulomb repulsion among the localized Pu $5f$ electrons. We discuss how the properties of PuO$_{2}$ and Pu$_{2}$O$_{3}$ are affected by the choice of $U$ as well as the choice of exchange-correlation potential. Also, oxidation reaction of Pu$_{2}$O$_{3}$, leading to formation of PuO$_{2}$, and its dependence on $U$ and exchange-correlation potential have been studied. Our results show that by choosing an appropriate $U$ it is promising to correctly and consistently describe structural, electronic, and thermodynamic properties of PuO$_{2}$ and Pu$_{2}$O$_{3}$, which enables it possible the modeling of redox process involving Pu-based materials.
The existence of band gaps in Mott insulators such as perovskite oxides with partially filled 3d shells has been traditionally explained in terms of strong, dynamic inter-electronic repulsion codified by the on-site repulsion energy U in the Hubbard Hamiltonian. The success of the DFT+U approach where an empirical on-site potential term U is added to the exchange-and correlation Density Functional Theory (DFT) raised questions on whether U in DFT+U represents interelectronic correlation in the same way as it does in the Hubbard Hamiltonian, and if empiricism in selecting U can be avoided. Here we illustrate that ab-initio DFT without any U is able to predict gapping trends and structural symmetry breaking (octahedra rotations, Jahn-Teller modes, bond disproportionation) for all ABO3 3d perovskites from titanates to nickelates in both spin-ordered and spin disordered paramagnetic phases. We describe the paramagnetic phases as a supercell where individual sites can have different local environments thereby allowing DFT to develop finite moments on different sites as long as the total cell has zero moment. We use a recently developed exchange and correlation functional (SCAN) that is sanctioned by the usual single-determinant, mean-field DFT paradigm with static correlations, but has a more precise rendering of self-interaction cancelation. Our results suggest that strong dynamic electronic correlations are not playing a universal role in gapping of 3d ABO3 Mott insulators, and opens the way for future applications of DFT for studying a plethora of complexity effects that depend on the existence of gaps, such as doping, defects, and band alignment in ABO3 oxides.
A novel approach to electronic correlations in magnetic crystals which takes into account a dynamical many-body effects is present. In order to to find a frequency dependence of the electron self energy, an effective quantum-impurity many-particle problem need to be solved within the dynamical mean-field theory. The numerically exact QMC-scheme and the spin-polarized fluctuation exchange approximation are used for the self-consistent solution of this single-site many-particle problem. The calculations of effective exchange interaction parameters based on the realistic electronic structure of correlated magnetic crystals have been discussed.
We present a derivation of the exact expression for Pulay forces in density-functional theory calculations augmented with extended Hubbard functionals, and arising from the use of orthogonalized atomic orbitals as projectors for the Hubbard manifold. The derivative of the inverse square root of the orbital overlap matrix is obtained as a closed-form solution of the associated Lyapunov (Sylvester) equation. The expression for the resulting contribution to the forces is presented in the framework of ultrasoft pseudopotentials and the projector-augmented-wave method, and using a plane wave basis set. We have benchmarked the present implementation with respect to finite differences of total energies for the case of NiO, finding excellent agreement. Owing to the accuracy of Hubbard-corrected density-functional theory calculations - provided the Hubbard parameters are computed for the manifold under consideration - the present work paves the way for systematic studies of solid-state and molecular transition-metal and rare-earth compounds.
Density-functional theory is widely used to predict the physical properties of materials. However, it usually fails for strongly correlated materials. A popular solution is to use the Hubbard corrections to treat strongly correlated electronic states. Unfortunately, the exact values of the Hubbard $U$ and $J$ parameters are initially unknown, and they can vary from one material to another. In this semi-empirical study, we explore the $U$ and $J$ parameter space of a group of iron-based compounds to simultaneously improve the prediction of physical properties (volume, magnetic moment, and bandgap). We used a Bayesian calibration assisted by Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling for three different exchange-correlation functionals (LDA, PBE, and PBEsol). We found that LDA requires the largest $U$ correction. PBE has the smallest standard deviation and its $U$ and $J$ parameters are the most transferable to other iron-based compounds. Lastly, PBE predicts lattice parameters reasonably well without the Hubbard correction.