UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Beyond Ehrenfest: correlated non-adiabatic molecular dynamics

Horsfield, A.P.; Bowler, D.R.; Fisher, A.J.; Todorov, T.N.; Sánchez, C.; (2004) Beyond Ehrenfest: correlated non-adiabatic molecular dynamics. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter , 16 (46) pp. 8251-8266. 10.1088/0953-8984/16/46/012. Green open access

[thumbnail of jpcm_16_8251.pdf]
Preview
PDF
jpcm_16_8251.pdf

Download (799kB)

Abstract

A method for introducing correlations between electrons and ions that is computationally affordable is described. The central assumption is that the ionic wavefunctions are narrow, which makes possible a moment expansion for the full density matrix. To make the problem tractable we reduce the remaining many-electron problem to a single-electron problem by performing a trace over all electronic degrees of freedom except one. This introduces both one- and two-electron quantities into the equations of motion. Quantities depending on more than one electron are removed by making a Hartree–Fock approximation. Using the first-moment approximation, we perform a number of tight binding simulations of the effect of an electric current on a mobile atom. The classical contribution to the ionic kinetic energy exhibits cooling and is independent of the bias. The quantum contribution exhibits strong heating, with the heating rate proportional to the bias. However, increased scattering of electrons with increasing ionic kinetic energy is not observed. This effect requires the introduction of the second moment.

Type: Article
Title: Beyond Ehrenfest: correlated non-adiabatic molecular dynamics
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1088/0953-8984/16/46/012
Publisher version: http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0953-8984/16/46/012...
Language: English
UCL classification: UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/462
Downloads since deposit
678Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item