No Arabic abstract
Quantum embedding methods have become a powerful tool to overcome deficiencies of traditional quantum modelling in materials science. However while these can be accurate, they generally lack the ability to be rigorously improved and still often rely on empirical parameters. Here, we reformulate quantum embedding to ensure the ability to systematically converge properties of real materials with accurate correlated wave function methods, controlled by a single, rapidly convergent parameter. By expanding supercell size, basis set, and the resolution of the fluctuation space of an embedded fragment, we show that the systematic improvability of the approach yields accurate structural and electronic properties of realistic solids without empirical parameters, even across changes in geometry. Results are presented in insulating, semi-metallic, and more strongly correlated regimes, finding state of the art agreement to experimental data.
We apply the Greens function coupled cluster singles and doubles (GFCCSD) impurity solver to realistic impurity problems arising for strongly correlated solids within the self-energy embedding theory (SEET) framework. We describe the details of our GFCC solver implementation, investigate its performance, and highlight potential advantages and problems on examples of impurities created during the self-consistent SEET for antiferromagnetic MnO and paramagnetic SrMnO$_{3}$. GFCCSD provides satisfactory descriptions for weakly and moderately correlated impurities with sizes that are intractable by existing accurate impurity solvers such as exact diagonalization (ED). However, our data also shows that when correlations become strong, the singles and doubles approximation used in GFCC could lead to instabilities in searching for the particle number present in impurity problems. These instabilities appears especially severe when the impurity size gets larger and multiple degenerate orbitals with strong correlations are present. We conclude that to fully check the reliability of GFCCSD results and use them in fully {em ab initio} calculations in the absence of experiments, a verification from a GFCC solver with higher order excitations is necessary.
The cost of the exact solution of the many-electron problem is believed to be exponential in the number of degrees of freedom, necessitating approximations that are controlled and accurate but numerically tractable. In this paper, we show that one of these approximations, the self-energy embedding theory (SEET), is derivable from a universal functional and therefore implicitly satisfies conservation laws and thermodynamic consistency. We also show how other approximations, such as the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) and its combinations with many-body perturbation theory, can be understood as a special case of SEET and discuss how the additional freedom present in SEET can be used to obtain systematic convergence of results.
Thermal transport is less appreciated in probing quantum materials in comparison to electrical transport. This article aims to show the pivotal role that thermal transport may play in understanding quantum materials: the longitudinal thermal transport reflects the itinerant quasiparticles even in an electrical insulating phase, while the transverse thermal transport such as thermal Hall and Nernst effect are tightly linked to nontrivial topology. We discuss three types of examples: quantum spin liquids where thermal transport identifies its existence, superconductors where thermal transport reveals the superconducting gap structure, and topological Weyl semimetals where anomalous Nernst effect is a consequence of nontrivial Berry curvature. We conclude with an outlook of the unique insights thermal transport may offer to probe a much broader category of quantum phenomena.
Due to advances in computer hardware and new algorithms, it is now possible to perform highly accurate many-body simulations of realistic materials with all their intrinsic complications. The success of these simulations leaves us with a conundrum: how do we extract useful physical models and insight from these simulations? In this article, we present a formal theory of downfolding--extracting an effective Hamiltonian from first-principles calculations. The theory maps the downfolding problem into fitting information derived from wave functions sampled from a low-energy subspace of the full Hilbert space. Since this fitting process most commonly uses reduced density matrices, we term it density matrix downfolding (DMD).
We present a real-space view of one-dimensional (1D) to three-dimensional (3D) topological materials with 13 representative samples selected from each class, including 1D trans-polyacetylene, two-dimensional (2D) graphene, and 3D topological insulators, Dirac semimetals, Weyl semimetals, and nodal-line semimetals. This review is not intended to present a complete up-to-date list of publications on topological materials, nor to provide a progress report on the theoretical concepts and experimental advances, but rather to focus on an analysis based on the valence-bond model to help the readers gain a more balanced view of the real-space bonding electron characteristics at the molecular level versus the reciprocal-space band picture of topological materials. Starting from a brief review of low-dimensional magnetism with `toy models for a 1D Heisenberg antiferromagnetic (HAF) chain, 1D trans-polyacetylene and 2D graphene are found to have similar conjugated (pi)-bond systems, and the Dirac cone is correlated to their unconventional 1D and 2D conduction mechanisms. Strain-driven and symmetry-protected topological insulators are introduced from the perspective of material preparation and valence-electron sharing in the valence-bond model analysis. The valence-bond models for the newly developed Dirac semimetals, Weyl semimetals, and nodal line semimetals are examined with more emphasis on the bond length and electron sharing, which is found consistent with the band picture.