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Direct evaluation of the force constant matrix in quantum Monte Carlo.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Liu, YYF 
Andrews, Bartholomew  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9079-7433
Conduit, GJ 

Abstract

We develop a formalism to directly evaluate the matrix of force constants within a Quantum Monte Carlo calculation. We utilize the matrix of force constants to accurately relax the positions of atoms in molecules and determine their vibrational modes, using a combination of variational and diffusion Monte Carlo. The computed bond lengths differ by less than 0.007 Å from the experimental results for all four tested molecules. For hydrogen and hydrogen chloride, we obtain fundamental vibrational frequencies within 0.1% of experimental results and ∼10 times more accurate than leading computational methods. For carbon dioxide and methane, the vibrational frequency obtained is on average within 1.1% of the experimental result, which is at least 3 times closer than results using restricted Hartree-Fock and density functional theory with a Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof functional and comparable or better than density functional theory with a semi-empirical functional.

Description

Keywords

physics.comp-ph, physics.comp-ph, physics.chem-ph

Journal Title

J Chem Phys

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0021-9606
1089-7690

Volume Title

150

Publisher

AIP Publishing
Sponsorship
The Royal Society (uf130122)
EPSRC (1641829)
EPSRC (1641829)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M506485/1)