Direct ΔMBPT(2) method for ionization potentials, electron affinities, and excitation energies using fractional occupation numbers

Chemical Potentials and the One-Electron Hamiltonian of the Second-Order Perturbation Theory from the Functional Derivative Approach

We develop a functional derivative approach to calculate the chemical potentials of second-order perturbation theory (MP2). In the functional derivative approach, the correlation part of the MP2 chemical potential, which is the derivative of the MP2 correlation energy with respect to the occupation number of frontier orbitals, is obtained from the chain rule via the noninteracting Green's function. First, the MP2 correlation energy is expressed in terms of the noninteracting Green's function, and its functional derivative to the noninteracting Green's function is the second-order self-energy. Then, the derivative of the noninteracting Green's function to the occupation number is obtained by including the orbital relaxation effect. We show that the MP2 chemical potentials obtained from the functional derivative approach agree with that obtained from the finite difference approach. The one-electron Hamiltonian, defined as the derivative of the MP2 energy with respect to the one particle density matrix, is also derived using the functional derivative approach, which can be used in the self-consistent calculations of MP2 and double-hybrid density functionals. The developed functional derivative approach is promising for calculating the chemical potentials and the one-electron Hamiltonian of approximate functionals and many-body perturbation approaches dependent explicitly on the noninteracting Green's function.

Vertical Ionization Potentials and Electron Affinities at the Double-Hybrid Density Functional Level

The double-hybrid (DH) time-dependent density functional theory is extended to vertical ionization potentials (VIPs) and electron affinities (VEAs). Utilizing the density fitting approximation, efficient implementations are presented for the genuine DH ansatz relying on the perturbative second-order correction, while an iterative analogue is also elaborated using our second-order algebraic-diagrammatic construction [ADC(2)]-based DH approach. The favorable computational requirements of the present schemes are discussed in detail. The performance of the recently proposed spin-component-scaled and spin-opposite-scaled (SOS) range-separated (RS) and long-range corrected (LC) DH functionals is comprehensively assessed, while popular hybrid and global DH approaches are also discussed. For the benchmark calculations, up-to-date test sets are selected with high-level coupled-cluster references. Our results show that the ADC(2)-based SOS-RS-PBE-P86 approach is the most accurate and robust functional. This method consistently outperforms the excellent SOS-ADC(2) approach for VIPs, although the results are somewhat less satisfactory for VEAs. Among the genuine DH functionals, the SOS-ωPBEPP86 approach is also recommended for describing ionization processes, but its performance is even less reliable for electron-attached states. In addition, surprisingly good results are attained by the LC hybrid ωB97X-D functional, where the corresponding occupied (unoccupied) orbital energies are retrieved as VIPs (VEAs) within the present formalism.

Perturbation theory made efficient and effective for predictions of ionization potential and electron affinity

Ionization potential and electron affinity are essential molecular properties. The most straightforward method is to calculate them by taking the total energy differences of the initial and final states according to the definition. However, it often suffers from a serious convergence problem due to the requirement of the self-consistent field (SCF) calculations for the ionic states with non-Aufbau choices of occupations. In the present work, we have constructed a theoretical framework in view of perturbation theory to bypass the SCF calculations of the ionic states. To address the imbalance issue that arises from the precisely treated neutral ground state followed by the truncated perturbative treatment of the ionic states, an accurate yet effective method has been developed here, which adds back some terms from the higher order perturbations into the lower order to cancel out the most computationally cost terms in the truncated expansion, thus reaching a better convergence with less computation. The validity of the present methodology has been tested out by applying it to the Hartree-Fock (HF) method in combination with the correlation effect described at the second-order Møller-Plesset level in a frozen-orbital approximation. All the derivations in this work are given in a general framework, which are applicable not only to HF but also to a wide range of density functional theory methods from semi-local functionals to hybrid and doubly hybrid functionals.

The Electron Affinity as the Highest Occupied Anion Orbital Energy with a Sufficiently Accurate Approximation of the Exact Kohn-Sham Potential

Negative ions are not accurately represented in density functional approximations (DFAs) such as (semi)local density functionals (LDA or GGA or meta-GGA). This is caused by the much too high orbital energies (not negative enough) with these DFAs compared to the exact Kohn–Sham values. Negative ions very often have positive DFA HOMO energies, hence they are unstable. These problems do not occur with the exact Kohn–Sham potential, the anion HOMO energy then being equal to minus the electron affinity. It is therefore desirable to develop sufficiently accurate approximations to the exact Kohn–Sham potential. There are further beneficial effects on the orbital shapes and the density of using a good approximation to the exact KS potential. Notably the unoccupied orbitals are not unduly diffuse, as they are in the Hartree–Fock model, with hybrid functionals, and even with (semi)local density functional approximations (LDFAs). We show that the recently developed B-GLLB-VWN approximation [Gritsenko et al. J. Chem. Phys.2016, 144, 204114] to the exact KS potential affords stable negative ions with HOMO orbital energy close to minus the electron affinity.

A correlation–relaxation-balanced direct method at the second order perturbation theory for accurate ionization potential predictions

With almost no extra computational cost after a normal MP2 procedure, the CRB-MP2 method proposed here yields high quality valence and core IPs for a wide range of species.

Insights into Direct Methods for Predictions of Ionization Potential and Electron Affinity in Density Functional Theory

Vertical ionization potential (IP) and electron affinity (EA) are fundamental molecular properties, while the Δ method and the direct method are the widely used approaches to compute these properties. The Δ method is calculated by taking the total energy difference of the initial and final states, whose reliability is seriously affected by the issue associated with the imbalanced treatment of these two states. The direct method based on the derivatives involving only one single-state calculation can yield a quasi-particle spectrum whose accuracy, on the other hand, is mostly affected by the levels of approximate molecular structure theories. Because of the aforementioned issues, EA prediction can be particularly problematic. Here we present, for the first time, an analytic theory on the derivation and realization of generalized Kohn-Sham (KS) eigenvalues of doubly hybrid (DH) functionals that depend on both occupied and unoccupied orbitals. The method based on the KS eigenvalues of neutral systems, termed the NKS method, is found to suffer little from the imbalance issue, while it is only the NKS method that can offer accurate EA prediction from a good functional approximation, such as the XYG3 type of DH functionals. Being less sensitive to the size of basis sets, the NKS method is of great significance for its application to large systems. The insights gained in this work are useful for the calculation of properties associated with small energy differences while emphasizing the importance of the development of generalized functionals that rely on both occupied and unoccupied orbitals.

Accurate Quasiparticle Spectra from the T-Matrix Self-Energy and the Particle-Particle Random Phase Approximation

The GW self-energy, especially G₀W₀ based on the particle-hole random phase approximation (phRPA), is widely used to study quasiparticle (QP) energies. Motivated by the desirable features of the particle-particle (pp) RPA compared to the conventional phRPA, we explore the pp counterpart of GW, that is, the T-matrix self-energy, formulated with the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the ppRPA matrix. We demonstrate the accuracy of the T-matrix method for molecular QP energies, highlighting the importance of the pp channel for calculating QP spectra.