English

\textit{In-situ} pseudopotentials for electronic structure theory

Materials Science 2021-02-10 v1 Other Condensed Matter

Abstract

We present a general method of constructing \textit{in-situ} pseodopotentials from first principles, all-electron, full-potential electronic structure calculations of a solid. The method is applied to bcc Na, at equilibrium volume. The essential steps of the method involve (i) calculating an all-electron Kohn-Sham eigenstate. (ii) Replacing the oscillating part of the wavefunction (inside the muffin-tin spheres) of this state, with a smooth function. (iii) Representing the smooth wavefunction in a Fourier series, and (iv) inverting the Kohn-Sham equation, to extract the pseudopotential that produces the state generated in steps (i)-(iii). It is shown that an \textit{in-situ} pseudopotential can reproduce an all-electron, full-potential eigenvalue up to the sixth significant digit. A comparison of the all-electron theory, \textit{in-situ} pseudopotential theory and the standard nonlocal pseudopotential theory demonstrates good agreement, e.g., in the energy dispersion of the 3ss band state of bcc Na.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.04719,
  title  = {\textit{In-situ} pseudopotentials for electronic structure theory},
  author = {K. Björnson and J. M. Wills and M. Alouani and O. Grånäs and P. Thunström and Chin Shen Ong and O. Eriksson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.04719},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

13 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T22:58:24.690Z