==== Front Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci RSTA roypta Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences 1364-503X 1471-2962 The Royal Society 10.1098/rsta.2022.0325 rsta20220325 100915215989Articles Research Articles Development of a new quantum trajectory molecular dynamics framework Development of a new quantum trajectory molecular dynamics framework http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7013-208X Svensson Pontus Conceptualization Data curation Formal analysis Investigation Methodology Project administration Resources Software Validation Visualization Writing – original draft Writing – review & editing pontus.svensson@physics.ox.ac.uk 1 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0104-1424 Campbell Thomas Conceptualization Investigation Writing – review & editing 1 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7204-0509 Graziani Frank Conceptualization Investigation Writing – review & editing 2 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9725-9208 Moldabekov Zhandos Data curation Methodology Writing – review & editing 3 4 Lyu Ningyi Data curation 5 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3262-1237 Batista Victor S. 5 6 Richardson Scott Supervision 7 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1016-0975 Vinko Sam M. Conceptualization Funding acquisition Investigation Resources Supervision Writing – review & editing 1 8 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4153-0628 Gregori Gianluca Conceptualization Funding acquisition Investigation Resources Supervision Writing – review & editing 1 1 Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK 2 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA 3 Center of Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS), D-02826 Görlitz, Germany 4 Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), D-01328 Dresden, Germany 5 Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA 6 Yale Quantum Institute, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA 7 AWE, Aldermaston, Reading, Berkshire RG7 4PR, UK 8 Central Laser Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot OX11 0QX, UK One contribution of 11 to a theme issue ‘Dynamic and transient processes in warm dense matter’. 24 7 2023 July 24, 2023 24 7 2023 July 24, 2023 381 2253 2022032514 11 2022 November 14, 2022 19 1 2023 January 19, 2023 © 2023 The Authors. 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. An extension to the wave packet description of quantum plasmas is presented, where the wave packet can be elongated in arbitrary directions. A generalized Ewald summation is constructed for the wave packet models accounting for long-range Coulomb interactions and fermionic effects are approximated by purpose-built Pauli potentials, self-consistent with the wave packets used. We demonstrate its numerical implementation with good parallel support and close to linear scaling in particle number, used for comparisons with the more common wave packet employing isotropic states. Ground state and thermal properties are compared between the models with differences occurring primarily in the electronic subsystem. Especially, the electrical conductivity of dense hydrogen is investigated where a 15% increase in DC conductivity can be seen in our wave packet model compared with other models. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Dynamic and transient processes in warm dense matter’. warm dense matter , wave packet molecular dynamics , non-adiabatic electron dynamics Atomic Weapons Establishment http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000766 Oxford Physics Endowment for Graduates Center for Advanced Systems Understanding cover-dateJuly 24, 2023 ==== Body pmc1. Introduction The establishment of high power lasers facilities during the last decades has been instrumental in the achievements towards inertial confinement fusion (ICF) [1–3], but also for the creation of high-density and high-temperature conditions [4] otherwise only found in astrophysical objects [5,6]. Furthermore, X-ray lasers are now able to reach complementary high-pressure regions in phase space [7,8]. One of the exotic states now accessible is warm dense matter (WDM), which exists in gas giants [9–13], brown [14] and white dwarf stars [15,16], the crust of neutron stars [17,18] and during the compression of an ICF capsule [19]. WDM is a strongly coupled quantum plasma, with ions moving in a partially degenerate electron fluid with kinetic energy comparable with the ion–ion interaction energy [20]. Consequently, WDM inherits properties from both condensed matter systems and classical plasmas, a challenging combination to model. Various computational techniques are commonly used to describe these systems, yielding similar thermodynamic [21] and acoustic properties [22,23], although dynamic properties differ by orders of magnitude [24]. These uncertainties limit our understanding of, for example, the Jovian interior [25], or the modelling of ICF implosions [26]. The three main complications in modelling WDM are electron degeneracy, strong ion correlations and the separation in time scales between the electron and ion dynamics. A full solution would require a quantum mechanical treatment of the electrons, resolving electron dynamics while considering phenomena on the ion time scale. Consequently, explicit models of ionic motion span a wide range of theories, including classical systems with effective ion–ion interactions [27–29], classical electrons with effective quantum statistical potentials (QSP) [30–32], Bohmian mechanics [33], density functional theory molecular dynamics (DFT-MD) using both orbital-free [34,35] and Kohn–Sham [12,36,37] DFT-variants, phenomenological quantum hydrodynamics based on DFT-functionals [38–40], time-dependent DFT [41–43] and quantum Monte-Carlo and path integral Monte-Carlo [13,44,45] approaches. Coarse-grained models with effective interactions are fundamentally based on reconstructing some equilibrium property, the choice of which is arbitrary and limited to a specific thermodynamic condition, whereas experimental realizations are commonly non-stationary [7,46–50]. Furthermore, models rooted in the Born–Oppenheimer approximation—where the electrons are treated adiabatically—e.g. DFT-MD, cannot capture a dynamic electron response, believed to be important for the description of dynamic properties such as some transport coefficients [51], stopping power [39] and energy transfer between the electronic and ionic subsystems. However, time-dependent approaches are computationally costly, and are typically limited in terms of particle numbers and time scales of studied phenomena. Wave packet molecular dynamics (WPMD) [52,53] is a family of models in which the electron dynamics are computed explicitly, while simulating hundreds to thousands of particles over ionic time scales. This is made possible by restricting the wave function of each electron to a parameterized functional form. We present an extension to existing wave packet formulations—applicable to the WDM regime—in which the wave packets can be elongated in arbitrary directions. The model accounts for the long-range behaviour of electrostatic interactions and of fermionic properties by effective Pauli interactions, while implemented within the scalable molecular dynamics framework LAMMPS [54] to treat systems with thousands of particles. In the following section, the theoretical model is described, after which §3 outlines the numerical details and performance of the implementation. The model is compared with other computational techniques in §4, where we apply it to ground state and dynamic properties of a dense hydrogen plasma. We compute some structural and transport properties, which are compared with an isotropic wave packet model. We conclude with a summary of our results. 2. Theoretical description Originally proposed in the 1970s as an approximate solution to Schrödinger’s equation [55,56], wave packet models can systematically be derived from variations of the action, 2.1 S=∫ dt ⟨Q|iℏddt−H^|Q⟩, where H^ is the system Hamiltonian and the state, |Q⟩=|Q(Qμ)⟩, is restricted to some manifold, M, defined by the adopted wave packets and parameterized by its parameters Qμ. The resulting time evolution reproduces the true quantum dynamics to the best of its ability being restricted to the manifold, M, during short time scales of length δt. Concretely, it can be shown ⟨Δ(t,δt)|Δ(t,δt)⟩ is minimized to O(δt3), where |Δ(t,δt)⟩=|Ψ(t+δt)⟩−|Q(t+δt)⟩ and |Ψ(t+δt)⟩ is the true solution to Schrödinger’s equation starting from |Ψ(t)⟩=|Q(t)⟩ [52]. The long-time evolution is constrained by appropriate conservation laws, most notably energy conservation [57]. In general, the equations of motion are quasi-Hamiltonian 2.2 iℏ∑νCμνdQνdt=∂H∂Qμ∗, where 2.3 H=⟨Q|H^|Q⟩⟨Q|Q⟩≡⟨H^⟩andCμν=∂2∂Qμ∗∂Qνln⁡(⟨Q(Qμ∗)|Q(Qν)⟩). Fermions are described by states antisymmetric under exchange and Slater-determinants have been considered in [58–60]. However, this approach scales unfavourably with particle number N. Instead, here we employ a product state 2.4 |Q⟩=|q1⟩⊗|q2⟩⊗⋯⊗|qN⟩, of single-particle orbitals, |qi⟩, and ⊗ is the tensor product. Exchange effects are approximated by Pauli potentials of the type first introduced by Klakow et al. [61,62]. This structure simplifies Cμν, which becomes block diagonal, and the orbitals |qi⟩ only couple through the energy H. (a) Wave packets The choice of wave packet shape is central to the model, dictating the states that can be described [63]. Most commonly, isotropic Gaussians are used—primarily motivated by computational ease—yet other variants exist, see Grabowski [53] and references therein. To account for local gradients, an anisotropic wave packets form is introduced 2.5 ⟨x|qi⟩=((2π)3det(Σi))−1/4×exp⁡[−ξi⊺(14Σi−1−iℏΠi)ξi+iℏpi⊺ξi], where ξi=x−ri. The wave packet is parameterized by 18 degrees of freedom, the position ri, momentum pi and two symmetrical 3×3 matrices, Σi, describing the elongation and orientation and Πi the associated momentum to Σi. A similar type of wave packet has been treated previously, describing molecular binding in water molecules [64], and is generally believed to improve the description of molecular states [53]. The equations of motion for the functional form (2.5) have a classical-looking structure, for the ‘classical’ degrees of freedom [64] 2.6a dridt=∂H∂pianddpidt=−∂H∂ri, and the ‘internal’ dynamics of the wave packet follow as 2.6b ddtΣiαβ=ταβ∂H∂ΠiαβandddtΠiαβ=−ταβ∂H∂Σiαβ, where Σiαβ=(Σi)αβ and Πiαβ=(Πi)αβ are the components of the symmetric matrices. 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