No Arabic abstract
We present a Gaussian-basis implementation of orbital-free density-functional theory (OF-DFT) in which the trust-region image method (TRIM) is used for optimization. This second-order optimization scheme has been constructed to provide benchmark all-electron results with very tight convergence of the particle number constraint, associated chemical potential and electron density. It is demonstrated that, by preserving the saddle-point nature of the optimization and simultaneously optimizing the density and chemical potential, an order of magnitude reduction in the number of iterations required for convergence is obtained. The approach is compared and contrasted with a new implementation of the nested optimization scheme put forward by Chan, Cohen and Handy. Our implementation allows for semi-local kinetic-energy (and exchange-correlation) functionals to be handled self-consistently in all-electron calculations. The all-electron Gaussian-basis setting for these calculations will enable direct comparison with a wide range of standard high-accuracy quantum-chemical methods as well as with Kohn-Sham density-functional theory. We expect that the present implementation will provide a useful tool for analysing the performance of approximate kinetic-energy functionals in finite systems.
Employing a local formula for the electron-electron interaction energy, we derive a self-consistent approximation for the total energy of a general $N$-electron system. Our scheme works as a local variant of the Thomas-Fermi approximation and yields the total energy and density as a function of the external potential, the number of electrons, and the chemical potential determined upon normalization. Our tests for Hookes atoms, jellium, and model atoms up to $sim 1000$ electrons show that reasonable total energies can be obtained with almost a negligible computational cost. The results are also consistent in the important large-$N$ limit.
We present a computational scheme for orbital-free density functional theory (OFDFT) that simultaneously provides access to all-electron values and preserves the OFDFT linear scaling as a function of the system size. Using the projector augmented-wave method (PAW) in combination with real-space methods we overcome some obstacles faced by other available implementation schemes. Specifically, the advantages of using the PAW method are two fold. First, PAW reproduces all-electron values offering freedom in adjusting the convergence parameters and the atomic setups allow tuning the numerical accuracy per element. Second, PAW can provide a solution to some of the convergence problems exhibited in other OFDFT implementations based on Kohn-Sham codes. Using PAW and real-space methods, our orbital-free results agree with the reference all-electron values with a mean absolute error of 10~meV and the number of iterations required by the self-consistent cycle is comparable to the KS method. The comparison of all-electron and pseudopotential bulk modulus and lattice constant reveal an enormous difference, demonstrating that in order to assess the performance of OFDFT functionals it is necessary to use implementations that obtain all-electron values. The proposed combination of methods is the most promising route currently available. We finally show that a parametrized kinetic energy functional can give lattice constants and bulk moduli comparable in accuracy to those obtained by the KS PBE method, exemplified with the case of diamond.
Time-dependent orbital-free DFT is an efficient method for calculating the dynamic properties of large scale quantum systems due to the low computational cost compared to standard time-dependent DFT. We formalize this method by mapping the real system of interacting fermions onto a fictitious system of non-interacting bosons. The dynamic Pauli potential and associated kernel emerge as key ingredients of time-tependent orbital-free DFT. Using the uniform electron gas as a model system, we derive an approximate frequency-dependent Pauli kernel. Pilot calculations suggest that space nonlocality is a key feature for this kernel. Nonlocal terms arise already in the second order expansion with respect to unitless frequency and reciprocal space variable ($frac{omega}{q, k_F}$ and $frac{q}{2, k_F}$, respectively). Given the encouraging performance of the proposed kernel, we expect it will lead to more accurate orbital-free DFT simulations of nanoscale systems out of equilibrium. Additionally, the proposed path to formulate nonadiabatic Pauli kernels presents several avenues for further improvements which can be exploited in future works to improve the results.
Time-dependent orbital-free density functional theory (TD-OFDFT) is an efficient ab-initio method for calculating the electronic dynamics of large systems. In comparison to standard TD-DFT, it computes only a single electronic state regardless of system size, but it requires an additional time-dependent Pauli potential term. We propose a nonadiabatic and nonlocal Pauli potential whose main ingredients are the time-dependent particle and current densities. Our calculations of the optical spectra of metallic and semiconductor clusters indicate that nonlocal and nonadiabatic TD-OFDFT performs accurately for metallic systems and semiquantitatively for semiconductors. This work opens the door to wide applicability of TD-OFDFT for nonequilibrium electron and electron-nuclear dynamics of materials.
Orbital-Free Density Functional Theory (OF-DFT) promises to describe the electronic structure of very large quantum systems, being its computational cost linear with the system size. However, the OF-DFT accuracy strongly depends on the approximation made for the kinetic energy (KE) functional. To date, the most accurate KE functionals are non-local functionals based on the linear-response kernel of the homogeneous electron gas, i.e. the jellium model. Here, we use the linear-response kernel of the jellium-with-gap model, to construct a simple non-local KE functional (named KGAP) which depends on the band gap energy. In the limit of vanishing energy-gap (i.e. in the case of metals), the KGAP is equivalent to the Smargiassi-Madden (SM) functional, which is accurate for metals. For a series of semiconductors (with different energy-gaps), the KGAP performs much better than SM, and results are close to the state-of-the-art functionals with complicated density-dependent kernels.