Exploring the statically screened G3W2 correction to the GW self-energy: Charged excitations and total energies of finite systems

Arno Förster*, Lucas Visscher

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

92 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Electron correlation in finite and extended systems is often described in an effective single-particle framework within the GW approximation. Here, we use the statically screened second-order exchange (SOX) contribution to the self-energy (G3W2) to calculate a perturbative correction to the GW self-energy. We use this correction to calculate total correlation energies of atoms, relative energies, as well as charged excitations of a wide range of molecular systems. We show that the second-order correction improves correlation energies with respect to the random-phase approximation and also improves relative energies for many, but not all, considered systems. The dynamically screened SOX term has previously been shown to consistently lower the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) quasiparticle (QP) energies and to increase the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (LUMO) QP energies. We show here that the statically screened G3W2 correction consistently increases the LUMO QP energies, while no consistent trend can be observed for the HOMO levels. Also, confirming previous results, the magnitude of the correction is much smaller with the statically screened interaction than with the dynamically screened one. Quasiparticle self-consistent GW by itself is shown to be an excellent method for the calculation of charged excitation of finite systems, and it cannot consistently be improved upon by the G3W2 correction. For range-separated hybrid starting points, the description of fundamental gaps and HOMO QP energies is slightly worsened. However, tremendous improvements upon the GW LUMO energies, leading to almost perfect agreement with high-level coupled cluster reference methods, are observed. The evaluation of the statically screened G3W2 correction only comes with small additional computational cost compared to G0W0 for systems with up to 100 atoms and should therefore be suitable for practical applications.

Original languageEnglish
Article number125121
Pages (from-to)1-14
Number of pages14
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume105
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Mar 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research received funding (Project No. 731.017.417) from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the framework of the Innovation Fund for Chemistry and from the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the framework of the TKI/PPS-Toeslagregeling.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Physical Society.

Funding

This research received funding (Project No. 731.017.417) from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the framework of the Innovation Fund for Chemistry and from the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the framework of the TKI/PPS-Toeslagregeling.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Exploring the statically screened G3W2 correction to the GW self-energy: Charged excitations and total energies of finite systems'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this