Reduced density-matrix functional theory: Correlation and spectroscopy

In this work, we explore the performance of approximations to electron correlation in reduced density-matrix functional theory (RDMFT) and of approximations to the observables calculated within this theory. Our analysis focuses on the calculation of total energies, occupation numbers, removal/addition energies, and spectral functions. We use the exactly solvable Hubbard dimer at 1/4 and 1/2 fillings as test systems. This allows us to analyze the underlying physics and to elucidate the origin of the observed trends. For comparison, we also report the results of the GW approximation, where the self-energy functional is approximated, but no further hypothesis is made concerning the approximations of the observables. In particular, we focus on the atomic limit, where the two sites of the dimer are pulled apart and electrons localize on either site with equal probability, unless a small perturbation is present: this is the regime of strong electron correlation. In this limit, using the Hubbard dimer at 1/2 filling with or without a spin-symmetry-broken ground state allows us to explore how degeneracies and spin-symmetry breaking are treated in RDMFT. We find that, within the used approximations, neither in RDMFT nor in GW, the signature of strong correlation is present, when looking at the removal/addition energies and spectral function from the spin-singlet ground state, whereas both give the exact result for the spin-symmetry broken case. Moreover, we show how the spectroscopic properties change from one spin structure to the other.