Critical point search and linear response theory for computing electronic excitation energies of molecular systems. Part I: General framework, application to Hartree-Fock and DFT

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unified geometric framework using Kähler manifolds for computing electronic excitation energies in molecular systems, applicable to various quantum chemistry models including Hartree-Fock and DFT.

Contribution

It develops a systematic approach to derive linear response equations for nonlinear models within a geometric formalism, offering an alternative to traditional derivations like Casida's.

Findings

Provides a unified geometric framework for excitation energy calculations.

Derives linear response equations for nonlinear models systematically.

Numerical comparisons show the effectiveness of the approach at the Hartree-Fock level.

Abstract

Computing excited states of many-body quantum Hamiltonians is a fundamental challenge in computational physics and chemistry, with state-of-the-art methods broadly classified into variational (critical point search) and linear response approaches. The K\"ahler manifold formalism provides a uniform framework which naturally accommodates both strategies for a wide range of variational models, including Hartree-Fock, CASSCF, Full CI, and adiabatic TDDFT. In particular, this formalism leads to a systematic and straightforward way to obtain the final equations of linear response theory for nonlinear models, which provides, in the case of mean-field models (Hartree-Fock and DFT), a simple alternative to Casida's derivation. We detail the mathematical structure of Hamiltonian dynamics on K\"ahler manifolds, establish connections to standard quantum chemistry equations, and provide theoretical and numerical comparisons of excitation energy computation schemes at the Hartree-Fock level.