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Optical constants characterize the interaction of materials with light and are important properties in material design. Here we present a Python-based Corvus workflow for simulations of full spectrum optical constants from the UV-VIS to hard x-ray wavelengths based on the real-space Green's function code FEFF10 and structural data from the Materials Project (MP). The Corvus workflow manager and its associated tools provide an interface to FEFF10 and the MP database. The workflow parallelizes the FEFF computations of optical constants over all absorption edges for each material in the MP database specified by a unique MP-ID. The workflow tools determine the distribution of computational resources needed for that case. Similarly, the optical constants for selected sets of materials can be computed in a single-shot. To illustrate the approach, we present results for nearly all elemental solids in the periodic table, as well as a sample compound, and compared with experimental results. As in x-ray absorption spectra, these results are interpreted in terms of an atomic-like background and fine-structure contributions.

The real-space Green's function code FEFF has been extensively developed and used for calculations of x-ray and related spectra, including x-ray absorption (XAS), x-ray emission (XES), inelastic x-ray scattering, and electron energy loss spectra (EELS). The code is particularly useful for the analysis and interpretation of the XAS fine-structure (EXAFS) and the near-edge structure (XANES) in materials throughout the periodic table. Nevertheless, many applications, such as non-equilibrium systems, and the analysis of ultra-fast pump-probe experiments, require extensions of the code including finite-temperature and auxiliary calculations of structure and vibrational properties. To enable these extensions, we have developed in tandem, a new version FEFF10, and new FEFF based workflows for the Corvus workflow manager, which allow users to easily augment the capabilities of FEFF10 via auxiliary codes. This coupling facilitates simplified input and automated calculations of spectra based on advanced theoretical techniques. The approach is illustrated with examples of high temperature behavior, vibrational properties, many-body excitations in XAS, super-heavy materials, and fits of calculated spectra to experiment., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures. Submitted to Journal of Synchrotron Radiation

Green's function methods within many-body perturbation theory provide a general framework for treating electronic correlations in excited states. Here we investigate the cumulant form of the one-electron Green's function based on the coupled-cluster equation of motion approach in an extension of our previous study. The approach yields a non-perturbative expression for the cumulant in terms of the solution to a set of coupled first order, non-linear differential equations. The method thereby adds non-linear corrections to traditional cumulant methods linear in the self energy. The approach is applied to the core-hole Green's function and illustrated for a number of small molecular systems. For these systems we find that the non-linear contributions lead to significant improvements both for quasiparticle properties such as core-level binding energies, as well as the satellites corresponding to inelastic losses observed in photoemission spectra., Comment: This file includes both the main manuscript and the supplementary information

The interaction of laser fields with solid-state systems can be modeled efficiently within the velocity-gauge formalism of real-time time dependent density functional theory (RT-TDDFT). In this article, we discuss the implementation of the velocity-gauge RT-TDDFT equations for electron dynamics within a linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) basis set framework. Numerical results obtained from our LCAO implementation, for the electronic response of periodic systems to both weak and intense laser fields, are compared to those obtained from established real-space grid and Full-Potential Linearized Augumented Planewave approaches. Potential applications of the LCAO based scheme in the context of extreme ultra-violet and soft X-ray spectroscopies involving core-electronic excitations are discussed., Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures Updated acknowledgements and outlook. No changes to results

We present an efficient implementation of the Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) method for obtaining core-level spectra including x-ray absorption (XAS), x-ray emission (XES), and both resonant and non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering spectra (N/RIXS). Calculations are based on density functional theory (DFT) electronic structures generated either by abinit or Quantumespresso, both plane-wave basis, pseudopotential codes. This electronic structure is improved through the inclusion of a GW self energy. The projector augmented wave technique is used to evaluate transition matrix elements between core-level and band states. Final two-particle scattering states are obtained with the NIST core-level BSE solver (NBSE). We have previously reported this implementation, which we refer to as ocean (Obtaining Core Excitations from Ab initio electronic structure and NBSE) [Phys. Rev. B 83, 115106 (2011)]. Here, we present additional efficiencies that enable us to evaluate spectra for systems ten times larger than previously possible; containing up to a few thousand electrons. These improvements include the implementation of optimal basis functions that reduce the cost of the initial DFT calculations, more complete parallelization of the screening calculation and of the action of the BSE Hamiltonian, and various memory reductions. Scaling is demonstrated on supercells of SrTiO_3 and example spectra for the organic light emitting molecule Tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminum (Alq_3 ) are presented. The ability to perform large-scale spectral calculations is particularly advantageous for investigating dilute or non-periodic systems such as doped materials, amorphous systems, or complex nano-structures., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures

X-ray photoemission spectra generally exhibit satellite features in addition to the quasi-particle peaks due to many-body excitations, which have been of considerable theoretical and experimental interest. However, the satellites attributed to charge-transfer (CT) excitations in correlated materials have proved difficult to calculate from first principles. Here we report a real-time, real-space approach for such calculations based on a cumulant representation of the core-hole Green's function and time-dependent density functional theory. This approach also yields an interpretation of CT satellites in terms of a complex oscillatory, transient response to a suddenly created core hole. Illustrative results for TiO$_2$ and NiO are in good agreement with experiment.

We describe an approach for calculations of phonon contributions to the electron spectral function, including both quasiparticle properties and satellites. The method is based on a cumulant expansion for the retarded one-electron Green's function and a many-pole model for the electron self-energy. The electron-phonon couplings are calculated from the Eliashberg functions, and the phonon density of states is obtained from a Lanczos representation of the phonon Green's function. Our calculations incorporate ab initio dynamical matrices and electron-phonon couplings from the density functional theory code ABINIT. Illustrative results are presented for several elemental metals and for Einstein and Debye models with a range of coupling constants. These are compared with experiment and other theoretical models. Estimates of corrections to Migdal's theorem are obtained by comparing with leading order contributions to the self-energy, and are found to be significant only for large electron-phonon couplings at low temperatures.

We investigate the effects of "dynamic structural disorder" (DSD) on the behavior of supported nano-scale catalysts. DSD refers to the intrinsic fluctuating, inhomogeneous structure of such nano-scale systems. In contrast to bulk materials, nano-scale systems exhibit substantial fluctuations in energy, charge, and other extensive quantities as well as large surface effects. The DSD is driven by the stochastic librational motion of the center of mass and fluxional bonding at the nanoparticle surface due to thermal coupling with the substrate. Our approach for calculating DSD is based on a combination of statistical mechanics, transient coupled-oscillator models, and real-time DFT/MD simulations. This approach treats thermal and dynamic effects over multiple time-scales, including bond-stretching and -bending vibrations, DSD, and transient tethering to the substrate at longer ps time-scales. Model calculations of molecule-cluster interactions and molecular dissociation reaction paths are presented in which the reactant molecules are adsorbed on the surface of dynamically sampled clusters. This model suggests that DSD affects both the prefactors and distribution of energy barriers in reaction rates, and thus can strongly affect catalytic activity at the nano-scale.

A transferable potential energy function for describing the interaction between water molecules is presented. The electrostatic interaction is described rigorously using a multipole expansion. Only one expansion center is used per molecule to avoid the introduction of monopoles. This single center approach turns out to converge and give close agreement with ab initio calculations when carried out up to and including the hexadecapole. Both dipole and quadrupole polarizability is included. All parameters in the electrostatic interaction as well as the dispersion interaction are taken from ab initio calculations or experimental measurements of a single water molecule. The repulsive part of the interaction is parametrized to fit ab initio calculations of small water clusters and experimental measurements of ice Ih. The parametrized potential function was then used to simulate liquid water and the results agree well with experiment, even better than simulations using some of the point charge potentials fitted to liquid water. The evaluation of the new interaction potential for condensed phases is fast because point charges are not present and the interaction can, to a good approximation, be truncated at a finite range., Comment: 30 pages, 15 figures, 11 tables

Theoretical optical and x-ray spectra of model structures of water and ice are calculated using a many-body perturbation theory, Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) approach implemented in the valence- and core-excitation codes AI2NBSE and OCEAN. These codes use ab initio density functional theory wave functions from a plane-wave, pseudopotential code, quasi-particle self energy corrections, and a BSE treatment of particle-hole interactions. The approach improves upon independent-particle methods through the inclusion of a complex, energy-dependent self energy and screened particle-hole interactions to account for inelastic losses and excitonic effects. These many-body effects are found to be crucial for quantitative calculations of ice and water spectra.

An ab initio equation of motion method is introduced to calculate the temperature-dependent mean square vibrational amplitudes which appear in the Debye-Waller factors in x-ray absorption, x-ray scattering, and related spectra. The approach avoids explicit calculations of phonon-modes, and is based instead on calculations of the displacement-displacement time correlation function from ab initio density functional theory molecular dynamics simulations. The method also yields the vibrational density of states and thermal quantities such as the lattice free energy. Illustrations of the method are presented for a number of systems and compared with other methods and experiment.

We present a comparison between Fe K-edge x-ray absorption spectra of carbonmonoxy-myoglobin and its simulation based on density-functional theory determination of the structure and vibrations and spectral simulation with multiple-scattering theory. An excellent comparison is obtained for the main part of the molecular structure without any structural fitting parameters. The geometry of the CO ligand is reliably determined using a synergic approach to data analysis. The methodology underlying this approach is expected to be especially useful in similar situations in which high-resolution data for structure and vibrations are available., Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures

We investigate the feasibility of high performance scientific computation using cloud computers as an alternative to traditional computational tools. The availability of these large, virtualized pools of compute resources raises the possibility of a new compute paradigm for scientific research with many advantages. For research groups, cloud computing provides convenient access to reliable, high performance clusters and storage, without the need to purchase and maintain sophisticated hardware. For developers, virtualization allows scientific codes to be optimized and pre-installed on machine images, facilitating control over the computational environment. Preliminary tests are presented for serial and parallelized versions of the widely used x-ray spectroscopy and electronic structure code FEFF on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, including CPU and network performance.

A first principles approach is presented for calculations of optical -- ultraviolet (UV) spectra including excitonic effects. The approach is based on Bethe-Salpeter equation calculations using the \textsc{NBSE} code combined with ground-state density-functional theory calculations from the electronic structure code \textsc{ABINIT}. Test calculations for bulk Si are presented, and the approach is illustrated with calculations of the optical spectra and birefringence of $\alpha$-phase SiO$_2$ and the rutile and anatase phases of TiO$_2$. An interpretation of the strong birefringence in TiO$_2$ is presented., Comment: 8 figures

We report measurements of the non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (NRIXS) from the O 1s orbitals in ice Ih, and also report calculations of the corresponding spectra for ice Ih and several other phases of water ice. We find that the intermediate-energy fine structure may be calculated well using an ab initio real-space full multiple scattering approach, and that it provides a strong fingerprint of the intermediate-range order for some ice phases. These results have important consequences for future NRIXS measurements of high-pressure phases of ice and also may call into question the assumption that the wavefunctions for final states within a few eV of the absorption edge are strongly localized., Comment: 20 page, 4 figure. Submitted PRB

New theoretical and experimental investigation of the occupied and unoccupied local electronic density of states (DOS) are reported for alpha-Li3N. Band structure and density functional theory calculations confirm the absence of covalent bonding character. However, real-space full-multiple-scattering (RSFMS) calculations of the occupied local DOS finds less extreme nominal valences than have previously been proposed. Nonresonant inelastic x-ray scattering (NRIXS), RSFMS calculations, and calculations based on the Bethe-Salpeter equation are used to characterize the unoccupied electronic final states local to both the Li and N sites. There is good agreement between experiment and theory. Throughout the Li 1s near-edge region, both experiment and theory find strong similarities in the s- and p-type components of the unoccupied local final density of states projected onto an orbital angular momentum basis (l-DOS). An unexpected, significant correspondence exists between the near-edge spectra for the Li 1s and N 1s initial states. We argue that both spectra are sampling essentially the same final density of states due to the combination of long core-hole lifetimes, long photoelectron lifetimes, and the fact that orbital angular momentum is the same for all relevant initial states. Such considerations may be generically applicable for low atomic number compounds., Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures, 1 table

Ab initio approaches are introduced for calculations of inelastic losses and vibrational damping in core level x-ray and electron spectroscopies. From the dielectric response function we obtain system-dependent self-energies, inelastic mean free paths, and losses due to multiple-electron excitations, while from the dynamical matrix we obtain phonon spectra and Debye-Waller factors. These developments yield various spectra and optical constants from the UV to x-ray energies in aperiodic materials, and significantly improve both the near edge and extended fine structure., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 1 Table

The connection between the strictly isospectral construction in supersymmetric quantum mechanics and the general zero mode solutions of the Schroedinger equation is explained by introducing slightly generalized first-order intertwining operators. We also present a multiple-parameter generalization of the strictly isospectral construction in the same perspective, Comment: 7 pages, LaTex

The Schr\"odinger equation with attractive delta potential has been previously studied in the supersymmetric quantum mechanical approach by a number of authors, but they all used only the particular superpotential solution. Here, we introduce a one-parameter family of strictly isospectral attractive delta function potentials, which is based on the general superpotential (general Riccati) solution, we study the problem in some detail and suggest possible applications, Comment: 7 pages in LaTex, 4 eps figures, published version v4