Efficient Real-Space Solution
Efficient Real-Space Solution
of Poisson Problems and the
Kohn-Sham Equations with
Multiscale Techniques
Thomas L. Beck
Department of Chemistry
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0172, USA
email: thomas.beck@uc.edu
I. Acknowledgments
- Achi Brandt
- Ruth Pachter
- Jian Wang, Karthik Iyer, Michael Merrick, Rob Coalson
- AFOSR and NSF
- Ohio Supercomputer Center
II. Electronic Structure Methods
A. Basis-Set Methods (Quantum Chemistry)
- Methods
- Typically localized basis functions: gaussians (GTO) or atomic
orbitals (STO).
- Advantages
- Analytical forms for many integrals for electron-electron
interactions.
- Input of atomic information when using atomic orbitals.
- Controlled convergence with basis set size.
- Variational theorem.
- Disadvantages
- Less-structured Hamiltonian matrices, and
scaling can be severe.
B. Plane-Wave Methods
- Methods
- Expand eigenfunctions in plane-wave basis.
- Utilize FFTs for electrostatics problems and updating
the orbitals.
- Advantages
- Efficiency of FFTs.
- Lack of dependence of basis on atomic positions.
- Control of convergence with cutoff energy of shortest
wavelength mode.
- Disadvantages
- Difficulty if widely varying length scales.
- Charged systems.
- Completely nonlocal basis.
- Implicitly periodic systems (supercells).
C. Real-Space Methods
- Methods
- Finite differences.
- Finite elements.
- Wavelets.
- Advantages
- Convergence controlled only by grid resolution and order
of approximation.
- Handle multiple length scales with adaptive refinements.
- Finite or periodic systems.
- Locality of each function update and
linear scaling/parallel algorithms.
- Multigrid algorithms and efficiency.
- Disadvantages
- Domain size required?
- Accuracy of representation?
III. Historical Background of Real-Space Methods
A. Poisson problems and biophysical electrostatics
- Finite difference and finite element methods.
- Mainly SOR and conjugate gradient solvers on
single level (Honig, McCammon).
- More recently application of multigrid techniques
(Holst and Saied, Coalson and Beck, Tomac and Gräslund).
- Mesh refinements: Bai and Brandt, Beck, Gygi and Galli,
Kaxiras, Goedecker.
B. Electronic Structure
- Goedecker (linear scaling algorithms): Rev. Mod. Phys. 71, 1085 (1999).
- Arias (wavelet methods): Rev. Mod. Phys. 71, 267 (1999).
- Beck [finite differences (FD) and finite elements (FE)]:
Rev. Mod. Phys. (submitted).
C. Eigenvalue solvers with fixed potential
- Rabitz (1983): FD multigrid method for
single eigenfunctions, fixed eigenvalue.
- Seitsonen (1995): high-order FD, conjugate-gradient method.
- Kolb (1993): 2-d FE method, high accuracy for molecules.
- Ackermann (1994): adaptive multilevel FE method.
- Pask (1999): FE method for solids.
D. Self-consistent problems
- Laaksonen (1985), Becke (1989): FD methods with
radial grids for molecules.
- Chelikowsky (1994): high-order FD methods for
Kohn-Sham equations. Examined accuracy vs. plane waves.
- Hoshi and Fujiwara (1995): FD techniques incorporating
linear-scaling algorithms.
E. Multigrid techniques
- White, Wilkins, and Teter (1989): FE method using MG acceleration.
- Bernholc (1991, 1995+): MG for electronic structure, FD representation.
- Ancilotto (1999): algorithm similar to Bernholc's.
- Davstad (1992): 2d MG solver for Hartree-Fock. FD representation.
- Beck (1995+): MG for Poisson equation, nonlinear MG solver for
Kohn-Sham equations. All particles on grid. FD representation.
- Martin (1999): one-way MG for Kohn-Sham.
F. Mesh refinements
- Adaptive coordinates: Gygi and Galli (1995), Kaxiras (1997).
- Mesh refinements: Fattebert (1999), uses MG acceleration
in solution; Ono and Hirose (1999), double-grid method; Beck (1999).
G. Finite elements for electronic structure
- Heinemann (1987): FE for diatomics, high accuracy.
- Kopylow (1998): MG solver with 2d FE method, diatomics.
- White, Wilkins, Teter (1989): FE for atoms and diatomics, 3d,
MG acceleration.
- Gillan (1995+): FE-type method with linear-scaling algorithm.
Large systems.
- Tsuchida and Tsukada (1995+): FE method with linear scaling.
Large systems.
Typical of real-space solvers without MG acceleration
(or linearized MG) is
requirement of 20-50 or more self-consistency
iterations to reach ground state.
H. Time-dependent DFT calculations
- TDDFT in real time for optical response: Yabana and Bertsch (1996+),
high-order FD methods.
- TDDFT eigenvalue methods for excitation energies: Chelikowsky (1999),
high-order FD methods.
IV. Density Functional Theory for Electronic Structure
- Consider the KS equations
in the Local Density
Approximation (LDA):
|
[- |
1 2
|
Ñ2 + veff(r) ] yi(r) = ei yi(r). |
| (1) |
- The one-electron effective potential is:
|
veff(r) = ves(r)+ vxc(r(r)), |
| (2) |
- The electrostatic portion of the potential (nuclear
potential plus Hartree potential) given by:
|
ves(r) = |
ó õ
|
|
r(r¢) | r - r¢ |
|
d r¢ - |
å
i
|
|
Zi | r - Ri |
|
. |
| (3) |
- This potential can be obtained by real space numerical
solution of the Poisson equation:
|
Ñ2 ves(r) = - 4 prtot (r), |
| (4) |
- rtot is the total charge density on the grid
due to the electrons and nuclei.
- The exchange-correlation potential in our spin
restricted LDA computations is calculated
with the VWN functional.
- We have also developed MG methods for solving the nonlinear
Poisson-Boltzmann equation of electrostatics:
|
Ñ·(e(r) Ñf(r)) = - 4p[rs (r) + q |
_ n
|
+
|
e-bqf(r)-v(r)- q |
_ n
|
-
|
ebqf(r)-v(r) ] |
| (5) |
- All of the above are nonlinear problems.
V. Discretization
- 2nd order matrix representation:
|
|
1 h2
|
|
é ê ê ê
ê ê ê ë
|
|
|
|
ù ú ú ú
ú ú ú û
|
|
é ê ê ê
ê ê ê ë
|
|
|
|
ù ú ú ú
ú ú ú û
|
= -4p |
é ê ê ê
ê ê ê ë
|
|
|
|
ù ú ú ú
ú ú ú û
|
. |
| (6) |
- The Laplacian operator is discretized with a high order
finite difference representation (Hamming).
In the present work, a 12th order
form is mainly used. Table I shows the coefficients
up through 12th order.
- The impact of the order is shown in Figs. 1, 2,
and 3, for the eigenvalues, first moments, and
virial ratios of the 1s, 2s, and 2p states
of the hydrogen atom. The calculations were
performed on a 653 grid domain where the fine
grid spacing was h=0.5au.
Table 1: Coefficients for the Laplacian. One side plus
the central point are shown.
Each coefficient term should be divided by the prefactor.
The Laplacian is symmetric about the central point.
| Points | Order | Prefactor | Coefficients |
| N=3 | 2nd | 1 | | | | | | 1 | -2 |
| N=5 | 4th | 12 | | | | | -1 | 16 | -30 |
| N=7 | 6th | 180 | | | | 2 | -27 | 270 | -490 |
| N=9 | 8th | 5040 | | | -9 | 128 | -1008 | 8064 | -14350 |
| N=11 | 10th | 25200 | | 8 | -125 | 1000 | -6000 | 42000 | -73766 |
| N=13 | 12th | 831600 | -50 | 864 | -7425 | 44000 | -222750 | 1425600 | -2480478 |

Figure 1: Effect of order on the eigenvalues for
the H atom. The (+) symbols are for the 1s orbital,
(x) is for 2s, and the stars are for 2p. In the html
version the figures are rotated by 90 degrees due to
tth converter.

Figure 2: Effect of order on the orbital
first moments for
the H atom. The (+) symbols are for the 1s orbital,
(x) is for 2s, and the stars are for 2p.

Figure 3: Effect of order on the orbital
virial ratios for
the H atom. The (+) symbols are for the 1s orbital,
(x) is for 2s, and the stars are for 2p.
VI. Finite-element discretization
- Localized polynomial basis set.
- Therefore, variational theorem obeyed.
- For example, if piecewise linear functions in 1d,
problem looks very much like (2nd order) FD discretization.
- Adaptable.
- Number of terms along row of matrix proportional
to p3, vs. 3p + 1 for FD.
VII. FAS-FMG Algorithm
- The KS eigenvalue problem is nonlinear since one
simultaneously solves
for both the eigenvalues and the eigenfunctions. Therefore,
we have employed the FAS eigenvalue technique of
Brandt, et al. (1983).
- The discrete equations can be represented
on the current finest grid as:
- For the Poisson problem Lh is the finite difference Laplacian
on the fine grid with spacing h,
Uh is the electrostatic potential ves(r), and
fh is -4prtot(r).
- Upper case for the potential
denotes the exact numerical solution. Below, lower case
implies the current approximation.
- In the
eigenvalue equations Uh
becomes Uih, the eigenfunctions,
where the index i indicates the orbital
number.
- The eigenvalue operator Lh is the Hamiltonian minus
li, where li is the eigenvalue for
orbital i, and there is no source term fh.
The eigenvalue has the same value on all levels at convergence
and therefore is not labeled with a grid size.
- The discrete equations
on the coarse level are modified by the
inclusion of a defect correction term:
- IHh is the restriction operator which takes a
local average of the fine grid function.
- The
defect correction is:
|
tH = LH IHh uh - IHh Lh uh . |
| (9) |
- The fine grid function is then corrected
via:
|
uh ¬ uh + IhH (uH - IHh uh) , |
| (10) |
- IHh is the interpolation operator.
- For the eigenvalue problem, constraints must be
imposed on the coarsest level to maintain
eigenfunction separation:
|
áuiH, IHh ujh ñ = áIhH uih , IhH ujh ñ |
| (11) |
- On coarsest scale, require very little computational overhead.
- The eigenvalue is also updated on the coarsest level
by computing the Rayleigh quotient:
|
li = |
< LHuiH-tiH,uiH > < uiH,uiH >
|
|
| (12) |
- Subspace orthogonalization via Ritz projection.
- At end of MG correction cycle, Gram-Schmidt
orthogonalization is first performed,
followed by diagonalization of the Hamiltonian in the basis
of the occupied orbitals:
- w symbolizes the q ×Ng matrix of
eigenfunctions on the grid, and the zi are the
coefficients used to improve the occupied
subspace.
- The FMG approach is initiated by first iterating the
self consistent problem on the coarsest level used
for the eigenvalue problem.
- The problem is then
interpolated to the next finer level, where the
MG correction cycles begin.
- The FMG cycle is
shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Full multigrid cycle. Iterations begin on the left on the
coarsest level. The solver proceeds sequentially down to the finest
level, where a good initial approximation is generated from the
coarse-level processing.
VIII. H Atom Convergence Behavior
- 12th order, 653 domain, h = 0.5au.
- Potential from Poisson solution for single
charge in center of domain.
- Eigenvalues: -0.50050 (1s), -0.12504 (2s), -0.12496 (2p).
Three 2p states degenerate to 10 decimal places.
- Residuals can be driven to machine precision zero.
- Eigenvalues converged to 5 decimal places after a
single FAS-FMG V-cycle. Total of 6 applications of Hamiltonian
on the eigenfunctions on fine scale.
- Major cost is relaxation of orbitals on fine level.
- Total of about 90 sec on 450 MHz Pentium II machine.
IX. Numerical Results
- Calculations on atoms, ions, and small
molecules to test the convergence and accuracy of the method.
- The convergence behavior is illustrated in Fig. 5
in calculations on
the 4 electron Be atom and the 14 electron CO
molecule. Comparison is made to recent
MG and Car-Parrinello pseudopotential
calculations (Ancilotto, et al., 1999) on the 8 valence
electron C2 molecule. Wang and Beck, J. Chem. Phys. (in press).

Figure 5: Convergence behavior.
The top curve is the Car-Parrinello result
of Ancilotto et al.. The second curve is the MG
result from that work. The next is our result
for the CO molecule with the FAS-FMG solver.
The bottom curve is the FAS-FMG result
for the Be atom.
- We present the ionization potentials
for three atoms and the eigenvalues of the CO molecule
computed at the Xa level for comparison
with previous numerical
work (Table III).
Table 2: Calculations on Atomic Ionization Potentials
and Eigenvalues
for the CO molecule. The LDA calculations of Tong and Sham used
a form for the correlation energy which interpolates
between the Wigner expression at low density and
the Gell-Mann-Brueckner form at high density.
For the CO calculation, the grid
spacing was h = 0.1335 au and the bond length was taken as 1.13Å.
All energies are in hartrees.
| Ionization Potentials |
| Atom | h | Tong and Sham | FAS-FMG |
| He® He+ | 0.15 | 0.969 | 0.974 |
| Li® Li+ | 0.35 | 0.198 | 0.193 |
| O® O2+ | 0.12 | 1.843 | 1.821 |
| |
| Orbital | h | TeVelde | FAS-FMG |
| 1s(O) | 0.1335 | -18.745 | -18.832 |
| 1s(C) | | -9.912 | -9.940 |
| s(2s) | | -1.045 | -1.060 |
| s*(2s) | | -0.489 | -0.494 |
| p(2p) | | -0.413 | -0.407 |
| s(2p) | | -0.304 | -0.302
|
- Large 1293 domain since the
dipole moment of CO is a sensitive function of
the overall domain size. We obtained
a dipole value of 0.25 D
C-O+ compared to the previous result
of 0.24 D in fully converged numerical
calculations (Laaksonen), and
0.10 D in finite difference pseudopotential
calculations (Chelikowsky).
Table 3: Orbital energies for the oxygen
dimer, from Chelikowsky, Troullier, Wu, and
Saad (1994). FD-12 refers to high-order FD
calculations in a 12 au box. PW-12 and PW-24
refer to plane-wave calculations with supercells
of 12 and 24 au on a side. Energies are in eV.
| Orbital | FD-12 | PW-12 | PW-24 |
| ss | -32.56 | -32.09 | -32.60 |
| ss* | -19.62 | -19.11 | -19.57 |
| sp | -13.63 | -12.93 | -13.37 |
| pp | -13.24 | -12.54 | -12.98 |
| pp* | -6.35 | -5.53 | -5.98 |
X. Scaling
- q
orbitals and Ng fine grid points in the domain
- Relaxation of orbitals (qNg),
relaxation of potential (Ng)
- Gram-Schmidt
process (q2 Ng)
- Ritz projection (q2 Ng
to construct the matrix and q3 to solve)
- Computation
of the eigenvalues on the coarse grid (qNgH)
- Solution of the constraint equations on the coarse grid
(q2NgH to construct the
constraint matrix and q3 to solve).
- The most costly portion of the algorithm
for the small systems examined here is the relaxation
step for the orbitals.
- For large systems where
orbital localization is possible, each of the steps
becomes linear scaling with the number of electrons.
XI. High Order Mesh Refinement
- We have developed a generalization of Bai and
Brandt's 2nd order multigrid mesh
refinement method to arbitrary orders. [TLB, J.
Comp. Chem. 20, 1731 (1999)]
- It will allow for a
high resolution treatment in the regions
around the nuclei and will result in a large
decrease in the required total number of
grid points over the composite domain.
- The
method maintains the favorable scaling
properties of the MG method.
- Figure 6 displays a
schematic of the refined grid, and Figure 7
shows numerical results for a three dimensional
singular source problem.

Figure 6: Schematic two dimensional cut through the
three dimensional composite mesh.

Figure 7: Plotted are the analytical 1/r potential and
the numerical results from the conservative mesh refinement
multigrid computation. The two fine patches span the
ranges -8. to 8. and -4. to 4.
The lower curve gives the magnitude
of the difference between the exact and numerical results,
illustrating the larger errors near the source singularity.
XII. Conclusions
- The discretization scheme is relatively simple.
- So long as the condition of zero correction at convergence
is satisfied in the FAS-FMG algorithm, the solvers converge
rapidly to the solution.
- The time per self-consistency update is comparable to the
plane-wave method. The nonlinear solver requires less
time per update than the linearized version due to handling
of constraints on the coarsest level.
- Nonlinear multiscale solvers require at most a few self-consistency
iterations to obtain the ground state solution.
- The Poisson solvers scale linearly with system size. For
the eigenvalue problem, the method scales as q2 Ng (q
is the number of eigenfunctions and Ng is the total number
of grid points on the fine scale) if the orbitals span
the entire domain. If a localized orbital representation
is possible, the method scales linearly.
- Even on uniform meshes of reasonable size, good accuracies
for the valence states
can be obtained in high order finite difference
all electron computations. Future work will
focus on mesh refinements in the region of the core and
the incorporation of real space pseudopotential methods.
- The real space methods are readily modified for adaptive
discretization schemes without losing the favorable convergence
and scaling properties of the MG method.
- Due to the locality of the iterations, parallel algorithms
can be developed in a straightforward way.
- Only one parameter controls the convergence in terms of
numerical accuracy, the fine grid spacing h.
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