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Title: Elliptic Preconditioner for Accelerating the Self-Consistent Field Iteration in Kohn--Sham Density Functional Theory

Journal Article · · SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1137/120880604· OSTI ID:1225630
 [1];  [1]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Computational Research Division

We discuss techniques for accelerating the self consistent field (SCF) iteration for solving the Kohn-Sham equations. These techniques are all based on constructing approximations to the inverse of the Jacobian associated with a fixed point map satisfied by the total potential. They can be viewed as preconditioners for a fixed point iteration. We point out different requirements for constructing preconditioners for insulating and metallic systems respectively, and discuss how to construct preconditioners to keep the convergence rate of the fixed point iteration independent of the size of the atomistic system. We propose a new preconditioner that can treat insulating and metallic system in a unified way. The new preconditioner, which we call an elliptic preconditioner, is constructed by solving an elliptic partial differential equation. The elliptic preconditioner is shown to be more effective in accelerating the convergence of a fixed point iteration than the existing approaches for large inhomogeneous systems at low temperature.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1225630
Report Number(s):
LBNL-5686E
Journal Information:
SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, Vol. 35, Issue 5; ISSN 1064-8275
Publisher:
SIAM
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English