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Title: A comparison of different methods to implement higher order derivatives of density functionals

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1336042· OSTI ID:1336042
 [1]
  1. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)

Density functional theory is the dominant approach in electronic structure methods today. To calculate properties higher order derivatives of the density functionals are required. These derivatives might be implemented manually,by automatic differentiation, or by symbolic algebra programs. Different authors have cited different reasons for using the particular method of their choice. This paper presents work where all three approaches were used and the strengths and weaknesses of each approach are considered. It is found that all three methods produce code that is suffficiently performanted for practical applications, despite the fact that our symbolic algebra generated code and our automatic differentiation code still have scope for significant optimization. The automatic differentiation approach is the best option for producing readable and maintainable code.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
DOE Contract Number:
SC00112704
OSTI ID:
1336042
Report Number(s):
BNL-112219-2016-IR; BNL-112219-2016-INRE
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English