Born-Oppenheimer Dynamics, Electronic Friction, and the Inclusion of Electron-Electron Interactions

We present a universal expression for the electronic friction as felt by a set of classical nuclear degrees of freedom (DOFs) coupled to a manifold of quantum electronic DOFs; no assumptions are made regarding the nature of the electronic Hamiltonian and electron-electron repulsions are allowed. Our derivation is based on a quantum-classical Liouville equation for the coupled electronic-nuclear motion, followed by an adiabatic approximation whereby electronic transitions are assumed to equilibrate faster than nuclear movement. The resulting form of friction is completely general, but does reduce to previously published expressions for the quadratic Hamiltonian (i.e., Hamiltonians without electronic correlation). At equilibrium, the second fluctuation-dissipation theorem is satisfied and the frictional matrix is symmetric. To demonstrate the importance of electron-electron correlation, we study electronic friction within the Anderson-Holstein model, where a proper treatment of electron-electron interactions shows signatures of a Kondo resonance and a mean-field treatment is completely inadequate.