No Arabic abstract
Warm dense matter (WDM) has emerged as one of the frontiers of both experimental and theoretical physics and is challenging traditional concepts of plasma, atomic, and condensed-matter physics. While it has become common practice to model correlated electrons in WDM within the framework of Kohn-Sham density functional theory, quantitative benchmarks of exchange-correlation (XC) functionals under WDM conditions are yet incomplete. Here, we present the first assessment of common XC functionals against exact path-integral Monte Carlo calculations of the harmonically perturbed thermal electron gas. This system is directly related to the numerical modeling of X-Ray scattering experiments on warm dense samples. Our assessment yields the parameter space where common XC functionals are applicable. More importantly, we pinpoint where the tested XC functionals fail when perturbations on the electronic structure are imposed. We indicate the lack of XC functionals that take into account the needs of WDM physics in terms of perturbed electronic structures.
In a recent Letter [T.~Dornheim emph{et al.}, Phys.~Rev.~Lett.~textbf{125}, 085001 (2020)], we have presented the first emph{ab initio} results for the nonlinear density response of electrons in the warm dense matter regime. In the present work, we extend these efforts by carrying out extensive new path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) simulations of a emph{ferromagnetic} electron gas that is subject to an external harmonic perturbation. This allows us to unambiguously quantify the impact of spin-effects on the nonlinear density response of the warm dense electron gas. In addition to their utility for the description of warm dense matter in an external magnetic field, our results further advance our current understanding of the uniform electron gas as a fundamental model system, which is important in its own right.
In a recent Letter, Dornheim et al. [PRL 125, 085001 (2020)] have investigated the nonlinear density response of the uniform electron gas in the warm dense matter regime. More specifically, they have studied the cubic response function at the first harmonic, which cannot be neglected in many situations of experimental relevance. In this work, we go one step further and study the full spectrum of excitations at the higher harmonics of the original perturbation based on extensive new ab initio path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) simulations. We find that the dominant contribution to the density response beyond linear response theory is given by the quadratic response function at the second harmonic in the moderately nonlinear regime. Furthermore, we show that the nonlinear density response is highly sensitive to exchange-correlation effects, which makes it a potentially valuable new tool of diagnostics. To this end, we present a new theoretical description of the nonlinear electronic density response based on the recent effective static approximation to the local field correction [PRL 125, 235001 (2020)], which accurately reproduces our PIMC data with negligible computational cost.
The structure of the fluid carbon phase in the pressure region of the graphite, diamond, and BC8 solid phase is investigated. We find increasing coordination numbers with an increase in density. From zero to $30$ GPa, the liquid shows a decrease of packing efficiency with increasing temperature. However, for higher pressures, the coordination number increases with increasing temperature. Up to $1.5$ eV and independent of the pressure up to $1000$ GPa, a double-peak structure in the ion structure factors exists, indicating persisting covalent bonds. Over the whole pressure range from zero to $1000$ GPa, the fluid structure and properties are strongly determined by such covalent bonds.
In a classical plasma the momentum distribution, $n(k)$, decays exponentially, for large $k$, and the same is observed for an ideal Fermi gas. However, when quantum and correlation effects are relevant simultaneously, an algebraic decay, $n_infty(k)sim k^{-8}$ has been predicted. This is of relevance for cross sections and threshold processes in dense plasmas that depend on the number of energetic particles. Here we present extensive textit{ab initio} results for the momentum distribution of the nonideal uniform electron gas at warm dense matter conditions. Our results are based on first principle fermionic path integral Monte Carlo (CPIMC) simulations and clearly confirm the $k^{-8}$ asymptotic. This asymptotic behavior is directly linked to short-range correlations which are analyzed via the on-top pair distribution function (on-top PDF), i.e. the PDF of electrons with opposite spin. We present extensive results for the density and temperature dependence of the on-top PDF and for the momentum distribution in the entire momentum range.
We predict the emergence of novel collective electronic excitations in warm dense matter with an inhomogeneous electronic structure based on first-principles calculations. The emerging modes are controlled by the imposed perturbation amplitude. They include satellite signals around the standard plasmon feature, transformation of plasmons to optical modes, and double-plasmon modes. Most importantly, these modes exhibit a pronounced dependence on the temperature. This makes them potentially invaluable for the diagnostics of plasma parameters in the warm dense matter regime. We demonstrate that these modes can be probed with present experimental techniques.