Electronic structure of large systems

Quantum Chemistry aims at understanding the properties of matter through the modelling of its behavior at a subatomic scale, where matter is described as an assembly of nuclei and electrons. At this scale, the equation that rules the interactions between these constitutive elements is the Schrödinger equation. It can be considered (except in few special cases notably those involving relativistic phenomena or nuclear reactions) as a universal model for at least three reasons. First it contains all the physical information of the system under consideration so that any of the properties of this system can in theory be deduced from the Schrödinger equation associated to it. Second, the Schrödinger equation does not involve any empirical parameters, except some fundamental constants of Physics (the Planck constant, the mass and charge of the electron, ...); it can thus be written for any kind of molecular system provided its chemical composition, in terms of natures of nuclei and number of electrons, is known. Third, this model enjoys remarkable predictive capabilities, as confirmed by comparisons with a large amount of experimental data of various types. On the other hand, using this high quality model requires working with space and time scales which are both very tiny: the typical size of the electronic cloud of an isolated atom is the Angström (${10}^{-10}$ meters), and the size of the nucleus embedded in it is ${10}^{-15}$ meters; the typical vibration period of a molecular bond is the femtosecond (${10}^{-15}$ seconds), and the characteristic relaxation time for an electron is ${10}^{-18}$ seconds. Consequently, Quantum Chemistry calculations concern very short time (say ${10}^{-12}$ seconds) behaviors of very small size (say ${10}^{-27}$ m${}^3$) systems. The underlying question is therefore whether information on phenomena at these scales is useful in understanding or, better, predicting macroscopic properties of matter. It is certainly not true that all macroscopic properties can be simply upscaled from the consideration of the short time behavior of a tiny sample of matter. Many of them derive from ensemble or bulk effects, that are far from being easy to understand and to model. Striking examples are found in solid state materials or biological systems. Cleavage, the ability of minerals to naturally split along crystal surfaces (e.g. mica yields to thin flakes), is an ensemble effect. Protein folding is also an ensemble effect that originates from the presence of the surrounding medium; it is responsible for peculiar properties (e.g. unexpected acidity of some reactive site enhanced by special interactions) upon which vital processes are based. However, it is undoubtedly true that many macroscopic phenomena originate from elementary processes which take place at the atomic scale. Let us mention for instance the fact that the elastic constants of a perfect crystal or the color of a chemical compound (which is related to the wavelengths absorbed or emitted during optic transitions between electronic levels) can be evaluated by atomic scale calculations. In the same fashion, the lubricative properties of graphite are essentially due to a phenomenon which can be entirely modeled at the atomic scale. It is therefore reasonable to simulate the behavior of matter at the atomic scale in order to understand what is going on at the macroscopic one. The journey is however a long one. Starting from the basic principles of Quantum Mechanics to model the matter at the subatomic scale, one finally uses statistical mechanics to reach the macroscopic scale. It is often necessary to rely on intermediate steps to deal with phenomena which take place on various mesoscales. It may then be possible to couple one description of the system with some others within the so-called multiscale models. The sequel indicates how this journey can be completed focusing on the first smallest scales (the subatomic one), rather than on the larger ones. It has already been mentioned that at the subatomic scale, the behavior of nuclei and electrons is governed by the Schrödinger equation, either in its time-dependent form or in its time-independent form. Let us only mention at this point that

Computational Statistical Mechanics

The orders of magnitude used in the microscopic representation of matter are far from the orders of magnitude of the macroscopic quantities we are used to: The number of particles under consideration in a macroscopic sample of material is of the order of the Avogadro number ${𝒩}_A\sim 6\times {10}^{23}$, the typical distances are expressed in Å (${10}^{-10}$ m), the energies are of the order of $k_{\mathrm{B}}T\simeq 4\times {10}^{-21}$ J at room temperature, and the typical times are of the order of ${10}^{-15}$ s.

To give some insight into such a large number of particles contained in a macroscopic sample, it is helpful to compute the number of moles of water on earth. Recall that one mole of water corresponds to 18 mL, so that a standard glass of water contains roughly 10 moles, and a typical bathtub contains ${10}^5$ mol. On the other hand, there are approximately ${10}^{18}$ m${}^3$ of water in the oceans, i.e. $7\times {10}^{22}$ mol, a number comparable to the Avogadro number. This means that inferring the macroscopic behavior of physical systems described at the microscopic level by the dynamics of several millions of particles only is like inferring the ocean's dynamics from hydrodynamics in a bathtub...

For practical numerical computations of matter at the microscopic level, following the dynamics of every atom would require simulating ${𝒩}_A$ atoms and performing $\mathrm{O}\left({10}^{15}\right)$ time integration steps, which is of course impossible! These numbers should be compared with the current orders of magnitude of the problems that can be tackled with classical molecular simulation, where several millions of atoms only can be followed over time scales of the order of a few microseconds.

Describing the macroscopic behavior of matter knowing its microscopic description therefore seems out of reach. Statistical physics allows us to bridge the gap between microscopic and macroscopic descriptions of matter, at least on a conceptual level. The question is whether the estimated quantities for a system of $N$ particles correctly approximate the macroscopic property, formally obtained in the thermodynamic limit $N\to +\infty$ (the density being kept fixed). In some cases, in particular for simple homogeneous systems, the macroscopic behavior is well approximated from small-scale simulations. However, the convergence of the estimated quantities as a function of the number of particles involved in the simulation should be checked in all cases.

Despite its intrinsic limitations on spatial and timescales, molecular simulation has been used and developed over the past 50 years, and its number of users keeps increasing. As we understand it, it has two major aims nowadays.

First, it can be used as a numerical microscope, which allows us to perform “computer” experiments. This was the initial motivation for simulations at the microscopic level: physical theories were tested on computers. This use of molecular simulation is particularly clear in its historic development, which was triggered and sustained by the physics of simple liquids. Indeed, there was no good analytical theory for these systems, and the observation of computer trajectories was very helpful to guide the physicists' intuition about what was happening in the system, for instance the mechanisms leading to molecular diffusion. In particular, the pioneering works on Monte-Carlo methods by Metropolis et al., and the first molecular dynamics simulation of Alder and Wainwright were performed because of such motivations. Today, understanding the behavior of matter at the microscopic level can still be difficult from an experimental viewpoint (because of the high resolution required, both in time and in space), or because we simply do not know what to look for! Numerical simulations are then a valuable tool to test some ideas or obtain some data to process and analyze in order to help assessing experimental setups. This is particularly true for current nanoscale systems.

Another major aim of molecular simulation, maybe even more important than the previous one, is to compute macroscopic quantities or thermodynamic properties, typically through averages of some functionals of the system. In this case, molecular simulation is a way to obtain quantitative information on a system, instead of resorting to approximate theories, constructed for simplified models, and giving only qualitative answers. Sometimes, these properties are accessible through experiments, but in some cases only numerical computations are possible since experiments may be unfeasible or too costly (for instance, when high pressure or large temperature regimes are considered, or when studying materials not yet synthesized). More generally, molecular simulation is a tool to explore the links between the microscopic and macroscopic properties of a material, allowing one to address modelling questions such as “Which microscopic ingredients are necessary (and which are not) to observe a given macroscopic behavior?”

Homogenization and related problems

Over the years, the project-team has developed an increasing expertise on how to couple models written at the atomistic scale with more macroscopic models, and, more generally, an expertise in multiscale modelling for materials science.

The following observation motivates the idea of coupling atomistic and continuum representation of materials. In many situations of interest (crack propagation, presence of defects in the atomistic lattice, ...), using a model based on continuum mechanics is difficult. Indeed, such a model is based on a macroscopic constitutive law, the derivation of which requires a deep qualitative and quantitative understanding of the physical and mechanical properties of the solid under consideration. For many solids, reaching such an understanding is a challenge, as loads they are subjected to become larger and more diverse, and as experimental observations helping designing such models are not always possible (think of materials used in the nuclear industry). Using an atomistic model in the whole domain is not possible either, due to its prohibitive computational cost. Recall indeed that a macroscopic sample of matter contains a number of atoms on the order of ${10}^{23}$. However, it turns out that, in many situations of interest, the deformation that we are looking for is not smooth in only a small part of the solid. So, a natural idea is to try to take advantage of both models, the continuum mechanics one and the atomistic one, and to couple them, in a domain decomposition spirit. In most of the domain, the deformation is expected to be smooth, and reliable continuum mechanics models are then available. In the rest of the domain, the expected deformation is singular, so that one needs an atomistic model to describe it properly, the cost of which remains however limited as this region is small.

From a mathematical viewpoint, the question is to couple a discrete model with a model described by PDEs. This raises many questions, both from the theoretical and numerical viewpoints: