Effective Coulomb interaction in actinides from linear response approach

Abstract

The effective on-site Coulomb interaction (Hubbard $U$) between 5$f$ electrons in actinide metals (Th-Cf) is calculated with the framework of density-functional theory (DFT) using linear response approach. The $U$ values seldom rely on the exchange-correlation functional, spin-orbital coupling, and magnetic states, but depend on the lattice volume and actinide element. Along the actinide series, the Coulomb parameter $U$ of $\alpha$-phase first decreases slowly, followed by a jump in the vicinity of Pu and then a monotonous increase. For light actinides, the lattice volume has a sizeable influence on $U$ while the localization of 5$f$ electrons is almost constant. But for transplutonium metals, $U$ is almost independent of the lattice volume but the electronic localization increases rapidly. The calculated lattice parameters from DFT+$U$ with the Coulomb parameters as input are in better agreement with the experimental values than those from DFT within local density approximation or Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof approximation for solids (PBEsol). In particular, the agreement between PBEsol+$U$ and experiment is remarkable. We show that PBEsol+$U$ also well reproduce the experimental bulk moduli and the transition from itinerancy to localization of 5$f$ electrons along the series. Therefore it is concluded that DFT+$U$ with $U$ calculated from linear response approach is suitable for a good description of actinide metals.

arXiv comment10 pages, 9 figures

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Comparative study of first-principles approaches for effective Coulomb interaction strength $U_{\mathrm{eff}}$ between localized $f$-electrons: lanthanide metals as an example
• Correlation strength and orbital differentiation across the phase diagram of plutonium metal
• Electronic structure and magnetism in UGa2: DFT+DMFT approach