Quantum Proton Effects from Density Matrix Renormalization Group Calculations

We recently introduced [J. Chem. Phys. 152 2020, 204103] the nuclear-electronic all-particle density matrix renormalization group method (NEAP-DMRG) to solve the molecular Schr{o}dinger equation, based on a stochastically optimized orbital basis, without invoking the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. In this work, we combine the DMRG with nuclear-electronic Hartree-Fock (NEHF-DMRG), treating nuclei and electrons on the same footing. Inter- and intra-species correlations are described within the DMRG without truncating the excitation degree of the full configuration interaction wave function. We extend the concept of orbital entanglement and mutual information to nuclear-electronic wave functions and demonstrate that they are reliable metrics to detect strong correlation effects. We apply NEHF-DMRG to the HeHHe$^+$ molecular ion, to obtain accurate proton densities, ground-state total energies, and vibrational transition frequencies by comparison with state-of-the-art data obtained with grid-based approaches and modern configuration interaction methods. For HCN, we improve on the accuracy of the latter approaches with respect to both ground-state absolute energy and proton density which is a major challenge for multi-reference nuclear-electronic state-of-the-art methods.

Electron Dynamics with the Time-Dependent Density Matrix Renormalization Group

In this work, we simulate the electron dynamics in molecular systems with the Time-Dependent Density Matrix Renormalization Group (TD-DMRG) algorithm. We leverage the generality of the so-called tangent-space TD-DMRG formulation and design a computational framework in which the dynamics is driven by the exact non-relativistic electronic Hamiltonian. We show that, by parametrizing the wave function as a matrix product state, we can accurately simulate the dynamics of systems including up to 20 electrons and 32 orbitals. We apply the TD-DMRG algorithm to three problems that are hardly targeted by time-independent methods: the calculation of molecular (hyper)polarizabilities, the simulation of electronic absorption spectra, and the study of ultrafast ionization dynamics.

Transcorrelated Density Matrix Renormalization Group

We introduce the transcorrelated Density Matrix Renormalization Group (tcDMRG) theory for the efficient approximation of the energy for strongly correlated systems. tcDMRG encodes the wave function as a product of a fixed Jastrow or Gutzwiller correlator and a matrix product state. The latter is optimized by applying the imaginary-time variant of time-dependent (TD) DMRG to the non-Hermitian transcorrelated Hamiltonian. We demonstrate the efficiency of tcDMRG at the example of the two-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonian, a notoriously difficult target for the DMRG algorithm, for different sizes, occupation numbers, and interaction strengths. We demonstrate fast energy convergence of tcDMRG, which indicates that tcDMRG could increase the efficiency of standard DMRG beyond quasi-monodimensional systems and provides a generally powerful approach toward the dynamic correlation problem of DMRG.

Hardware Efficient Quantum Algorithms for Vibrational Structure Calculations

We introduce a framework for the calculation of ground and excited state energies of bosonic systems suitable for near-term quantum devices and apply it to molecular vibrational anharmonic Hamiltonians. Our method supports generic reference modal bases and Hamiltonian representations, including the ones that are routinely used in classical vibrational structure calculations. We test different parametrizations of the vibrational wave function, which can be encoded in quantum hardware, based either on heuristic circuits or on the bosonic Unitary Coupled Cluster Ansatz. In particular, we define a novel compact heuristic circuit and demonstrate that it provides the best compromise in terms of circuit depth, optimization costs, and accuracy. We evaluate the requirements, number of qubits and circuit depth, for the calculation of vibrational energies on quantum hardware and compare them with state-of-the-art classical vibrational structure algorithms for molecules with up to seven atoms.

Nuclear-Electronic All-Particle Density Matrix Renormalization Group

We introduce the Nuclear Electronic All-Particle Density Matrix Renormalization Group (NEAP-DMRG) method for solving the time-independent Schrodinger equation simultaneously for electrons and other quantum species. In contrast to already existing multicomponent approaches, in this work we construct from the outset a multi-reference trial wave function with stochastically optimized non-orthogonal Gaussian orbitals. By iterative refining of the Gaussians positions and widths, we obtain a compact multi-reference expansion for the multicomponent wave function. We extend the DMRG algorithm to multicomponent wave functions to take into account inter- and intra-species correlation effects. The efficient parametrization of the total wave function as a matrix product state allows NEAP-DMRG to accurately approximate full configuration interaction energies of molecular systems with more than three nuclei and twelve particles in total, which is currently a major challenge for other multicomponent approaches. We present NEAP-DMRG results for two few-body systems, i.e., H$_2$ and H$_3^+$, and one larger system, namely BH$_3$

The Density Matrix Renormalization Group in Chemistry and Molecular Physics: Recent Developments and New Challenges

In the past two decades, the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) has emerged as an innovative new method in quantum chemistry relying on a theoretical framework very different from that of traditional electronic structure approaches. The development of the quantum chemical DMRG has been remarkably fast: it has already become one of the reference approaches for large-scale multiconfigurational calculations. This perspective discusses the major features of DMRG, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses also in comparison to other novel approaches. The method is presented following its historical development, starting from its original formulation up to its most recent applications. Possible routes to recover dynamical correlation are discussed in detail. Emerging new fields of applications of DMRG are explored, in particular its time-dependent formulation and the application to vibrational spectroscopy.

Approximate analytical gradients and nonadiabatic couplings for the state-average density matrix renormalization group self-consistent field method

We present an approximate scheme for analytical gradients and nonadiabatic couplings for calculating state-average density matrix renormalization group self-consistent-field wavefunction. Our formalism follows closely the state-average complete active space self-consistent-field (SA-CASSCF) emph{ansatz}, which employs a Lagrangian, and the corresponding Lagrange multipliers are obtained from a solution of the coupled-perturbed CASSCF (CP-CASSCF) equations. We introduce a definition of the matrix product state (MPS) Lagrange multipliers based on a single-site tensor in a mixed-canonical form of the MPS, such that a sweep procedure is avoided in the solution of the CP-CASSCF equations. We apply our implementation to the optimization of a conical intersection in 1,2-dioxetanone, where we are able to fully reproduce the SA-CASSCF result up to arbitrary accuracy.

Large-scale quantum-dynamics with matrix product states

Dynamical electronic- and vibrational-structure theories have received a growing interest in the last years due to their ability to simulate spectra recorded with ultrafast experimental techniques. The exact time evolution of a molecular system can, in principle, be obtained from the time-dependent version of full configuration interaction. Such an approach is, however, limited to few-atom systems due to the exponential increase of its cost with the system dimension. In the present work, we overcome this unfavorable scaling by employing the time-dependent density matrix renormalization group (TD-DMRG) which parametrizes the time-dependent wavefunction as a matrix product state. The time-dependent Schroedinger equation is then integrated with a sweep-based algorithm, as in standard time-independent DMRG. Unlike other TD-DMRG approaches, the one presented here leads to a set of coupled equations that can be integrated exactly. The resulting theory enables us to study real- and imaginary-time evolutions of Hamiltonians comprising more than 20 degrees of freedom that are challenging for current state-of-the-art quantum dynamics algorithms. We apply our algorithm to the simulation of quantum dynamics of models of increasing complexity, ranging from simple excitonic Hamiltonians to more complex ab-initio vibronic ones.

Optimization of highly excited matrix product states with an application to vibrational spectroscopy

Configuration-interaction-type calculations on electronic and vibrational structure are often the method of choice for the reliable approximation of many-particle wave functions and energies. The exponential scaling, however, limits their application range. An efficient approximation to the full configuration interaction solution can be obtained with the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) algorithm without a restriction to a predefined excitation level. In a standard DMRG implementation, however, excited states are calculated with a ground-state optimization in the space orthogonal to all lower lying wave function solutions. A trivial parallelization is therefore not possible and the calculation of highly excited states becomes prohibitively expensive, especially in regions with a high density of states. Here, we introduce two variants of the density matrix renormalization group algorithm that allow us to target directly specific energy regions and therefore highly excited states. The first one, based on shift-and-invert techniques, is particularly efficient for low-lying states, but is not stable in regions with a high density of states. The second one, based on the folded auxiliary operator, is less efficient, but more accurate in targeting high-energy states. We apply the algorithm to the solution of the nuclear Schroedinger equation, but emphasize that it can be applied to the diagonalization of general Hamiltonians as well, such as the electronic Coulomb Hamiltonian to address X-ray spectra. In combination with several root-homing algorithms and a stochastic sampling of the determinant space, excited states of interest can be adequately tracked and analyzed during the optimization. We demonstrate that we can accurately calculate prominent spectral features of large molecules such as the sarcosyn-glycine dipeptide.

Vibrational Density Matrix Renormalization Group

Variational approaches for the calculation of vibrational wave functions and energies are a natural route to obtain highly accurate results with controllable errors. However, the unfavorable scaling and the resulting high computational cost of standard variational approaches limit their application to small molecules with only few vibrational modes. Here, we demonstrate how the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) can be exploited to optimize vibrational wave functions (vDMRG) expressed as matrix product states. We study the convergence of these calculations with respect to the size of the local basis of each mode, the number of renormalized block states, and the number of DMRG sweeps required. We demonstrate the high accuracy achieved by vDMRG for small molecules that were intensively studied in the literature. We then proceed to show that the complete fingerprint region of the sarcosyn-glycin dipeptide can be calculated with vDMRG.