# Delocalization Indices in Solids

Critic2 can calculate Bader’s localization and delocalization indices (DI) in solids using the pseudopotentials/plane waves approach. The DIs are a measure of electron delocalization (sharing) between atoms, related to the covalent bond order. There are two ways of calculating the DIs in solids using critic2. The simplest way makes use of a transformation of the one-electron KS states to Wannier functions, in such a way that the resulting states are maximally localized. These maximally localized wannier functions (MLWF) are useful because they allow discarding most of the atomic overlap integrals required for the DI calculation. The details of the algorithm and some examples are described in JCTC 14 (2018) 4699. Alternatively, it is possible to calculate the DIs using Bloch states. This is much slower than using Wannier functions but requires fewer steps (because you do not need to use wannier90) and can be used for metals. An example is given below for metallic sodium.

In the following examples, we use Quantum ESPRESSO (QE) to run the SCF calculations, wannier90 to compute the transformation to MLWF and the development version of critic2 to obtain the DIs. The tool we need to extract the KS states from the QE run (pw2critic.x) was introduced in version ~6.4, so either this or a more recent version is required. Any version of wannier90 from 2.0 onwards works.

Each DI calculation is carried out using a sequence of steps. In general, you need to:

1. Run a PAW SCF calculation with pw.x. This is done in order to calculate the all-electron density required for the correct determination of the atomic basins. The all-electron density is written to a cube file (rhoae.cube) with pp.x.

2. Run a norm-conserving SCF calculation using pw.x and the same ecutrho as in step 1. This will generate the KS states that we will transform into our MLWFs.

3. Calculate the pseudo-valence electron density from the converged norm-conserving SCF calculation and write it to a cube file (rho.cube) with pp.x. This is done only for consistency checks as, in practice, the pseudo-density will always be available as a sum over the squares of the MLWFs.

4. Use open_grid.x to unpack the k-point symmetry from the norm-conserving calculation and prepare the Wannier run. Using open_grid.x saves time but a non-selfconsistent calculation with a list of all k-points in the uniform grid can also be used.

5. Extract the KS coefficient, structure, and k-point mapping data to a .pwc file using pw2critic.x.

6. Run wannier90 in the usual way to get its checkpoint file (.chk). In spin-polarized cases, this needs to be done twice, once for each spin component.

7. Read the structure and the .pwc and the .chk files as a field in critic2 and calculate the DIs. The calculation of the DIs is activated using INTEGRABLE and the DELOC keyword.

In the output, the localization indices as well as all interatomic DIs are given as a function of distance from the reference atom. For an $$m \times n \times l$$ grid, all DIs between all pairs of atoms inside a $$m\times n\times l$$ supercell will be obtained. Hence, the higher m, n, and l, the longer the calculation will take. The cost of the DI calculation also depends on the ecutrho of both SCF calculations. In molecular crystals, molecular localization and delocalization indices are also calculated.

## Magnesium oxide (MgO)

The PAW calculation (step 1) with pw.x is straightforward:

&control
title='crystal',
prefix='crystal',
pseudo_dir='../zz_psps',
/
&system
ibrav=0,
celldm(1)=1.0,
nat=2,
ntyp=2,
ecutwfc=80.0,
ecutrho=320.0,
/
&electrons
conv_thr = 1d-8,
/
ATOMIC_SPECIES
o     15.999400 o_paw.UPF
mg    24.305000 mg_paw.UPF

ATOMIC_POSITIONS crystal
mg       0.500000000   0.000000000   0.000000000
o        0.000000000   0.500000000   0.500000000

K_POINTS automatic
4 4 4 1 1 1

CELL_PARAMETERS cubic
-0.000000000   3.901537427  -3.901537427
3.901540775   3.901536617  -0.000000811
3.901540775   0.000000811  -3.901536617


This is the (rhombohedral) primitive cell of magnesium oxide, with only two atoms in it. After this calculation is converged, we extract the all-electron density with pp.x and the input:

&inputpp
prefix='crystal',
plot_num=21,
/
&plot
iflag = 3,
output_format=6,
fileout='rhoae.cube',
/


This generates rhoae.cube. We will use this as the reference field for our atomic integrations, since it is the only density that can give the correct Bader basins. Next is the norm-conserving calculation (step 2):

&control
title='crystal',
prefix='crystal',
pseudo_dir='../zz_psps,
outdir='.',
/
&system
ibrav=0,
celldm(1)=1.0,
nat=2,
ntyp=2,
ecutwfc=80.0,
ecutrho=320.0,
/
&electrons
conv_thr = 1d-8,
/
ATOMIC_SPECIES
o     15.999400 o.UPF
mg    24.305000 mg.UPF

ATOMIC_POSITIONS crystal
mg       0.500000000   0.000000000   0.000000000
o        0.000000000   0.500000000   0.500000000

K_POINTS automatic
4 4 4 0 0 0

CELL_PARAMETERS cubic
-0.000000000   3.901537427  -3.901537427
3.901540775   3.901536617  -0.000000811
3.901540775   0.000000811  -3.901536617


There are several things to note in this input:

• The pseudopotentials are naturally different from those in the PAW run but the crystal geometry is the same.

• We use the outdir variable to have it write the .save directory and the .wfc files to the current directory, so there are no mishaps when we attempt to extract the KS states from them.

• The ecutrho is the same as in the PAW calculation. This will result in the rhoae.cube and the KS states being represented by grids with the same number of points (which is a prerequisite for the DI calculation in critic2).

• If symmetry is used in pw.x, then the density obtained from the rho.cube generated by pp.x and that calculated as the sum of the squares of the MLWFs are slightly different. This is because the former undergoes an additional symmetrization step inside QE.

• We use an automatic uniform grid but we eliminate the k-point shifts, which would result in k-point positions that critic2 would not know how to handle.

The pseudo-density cube file is generated next, using:

&inputpp
prefix='crystal',
plot_num=0,
/
&plot
iflag = 3,
output_format=6,
fileout='rho.cube',
/


The rho.cube file will only be used for checks, since the same information is contained in the .pwc file.

Now we run open_grid.x (step 4) on this very simple input:

&inputpp
outdir='.',
prefix='crystal',
/


This will unpack the k-points from the last SCF calculation and prepare the wannier90 run. The execution of open_grid.x generates a list of k-points that we will use later in the wannier90 input:

     Writing output data file crystal_open.save/
Grid of q-points
Dimensions:   4   4   4
Shift:        0   0   0
List to be put in the .win file of wannier90: (already in crystal/fractionary coordinates):
0.000000000000000    0.000000000000000    0.000000000000000    0.0156250000
0.000000000000000   -0.000000000000000    0.250000000000000    0.0156250000
[...]
-0.250000000000000   -0.250000000000000    0.500000000000000    0.0156250000
-0.250000000000000   -0.250000000000000   -0.250000000000000    0.0156250000


After unpacking the k-point grid, we need to extract the KS state coefficients from the QE files by using pw2critic.x (step 5):

&inputpp
outdir = '.',
prefix='crystal_open',
seedname = 'mgo',
smoothgrid = .true.,
/


The crystal_open prefix is automatically created by open_grid.x from the original prefix by appending _open. Note that pw2critic.x needs to be run without MPI. Using mpirun on it will not work. The execution of pw2critic.x creates a .pwc file can be read by critic2 and contains the reciprocal-space coefficients of the Kohn-Sham states. The smoothgrid option ensures that the grid in the .pwc file has the same dimensions as the electron density cubes.

The second piece of information we need for the DI calculation is the rotation of the KS states to yield the MLWF. We calculate this with wannier90 (step 6). The input is:

num_wann = 4
num_iter = 20000
conv_tol = 1e-4
conv_window = 3

begin unit_cell_cart
bohr
-0.000000000   3.901537427  -3.901537427
3.901540775   3.901536617  -0.000000811
3.901540775   0.000000811  -3.901536617
end unit_cell_cart

begin atoms_frac
mg       0.500000000   0.000000000   0.000000000
o        0.000000000   0.500000000   0.500000000
end atoms_frac

begin projections
random
end projections

search_shells = 24
kmesh_tol = 1d-3
mp_grid : 4 4 4

begin kpoints
0.000000000000000    0.000000000000000    0.000000000000000    0.0156250000
[...]
-0.250000000000000   -0.250000000000000   -0.250000000000000    0.0156250000
end kpoints


The num_wann is the number of bands in the system, equal to the number of Kohn-Sham states in the norm-conserving SCF output. The geometry is the same as in the QE calculations. The k-mesh is the same as in the norm-conserving SCF calculation (4x4x4) and the list of k-points is the one generated in the output of open_grid.x (shortened here for convenience). To run wannier90, first we generate the list of items that it needs from QE by doing:

$wannier90.x -pp mgo.win  and then we run the pw2wannier90.x utility on the input: &inputpp prefix='crystal_open', seedname = 'mgo', write_mmn = .true., write_amn = .true., outdir='.', /  This creates the files containing the integrals required for the wannier90 run. Note that we use the prefix for the files created by open_grid.x. Finally, we do: $ wannier90.x mgo.win


and this runs the MLWF calculation and writes the rotation matrix to the checkpoint (.chk) file.

Now that we have the .pwc file (with the KS coefficients) and the .chk file (with the orbital rotation), we can finally put everything together and use critic2 to calculate the DIs (step 7). The input is:

crystal mgo.pwc
load rhoae.cube
load mgo.pwc mgo.chk

integrable 2
integrable 2 deloc

yt


The crystal structure is read from the .pwc file (equivalently, it can be read from any of the cube files or pw.x input/output files. They should all be the same.) The all-electron density is loaded first and set as the reference fields so that it is used to calculate the atomic basins. Then, the .pwc and .chk files are loaded together into field number two, which is set as integrable and we activate the calculation of the DIs with the DELOC keyword. Finally, we run the Yu-Trinkle integration with YT.

After a few seconds, the DIs are done (it will take longer for larger crystals or crystals with more bands or denser density and k-point grids). For each atom in the unit cell a table like this is written:

# Attractor 1 (cp=1, ncp=1, name=mg, Z=12) at: 0.5000000  0.0000000  0.0000000
# Id   cp   ncp   Name  Z    Latt. vec.     ----  Cryst. coordinates ----       Distance        LI/DI
Localization index.......................................................................  0.01220619
26   2    2      o    8    0  -1   0   0.0000000   -0.5000000    0.5000000    3.9015366    0.10953819
58   2    2      o    8    1  -1   0   1.0000000   -0.5000000    0.5000000    3.9015366    0.10956477
40   2    2      o    8    1   0  -1   1.0000000    0.5000000   -0.5000000    3.9015366    0.10953816
8    2    2      o    8    0   0  -1   0.0000000    0.5000000   -0.5000000    3.9015366    0.10951576
2    2    2      o    8    0   0   0   0.0000000    0.5000000    0.5000000    3.9015408    0.10937694
64   2    2      o    8    1  -1  -1   1.0000000   -0.5000000   -0.5000000    3.9015408    0.10937112
27   1    1      mg   12   0  -1   1   0.5000000   -1.0000000    1.0000000    5.5176049    0.00114987
[...]
43   1    1      mg   12   1  -3   1   1.5000000   -3.0000000    1.0000000   13.5153222    0.00000393
85   1    1      mg   12  -2  -2   2  -1.5000000   -2.0000000    2.0000000   15.6061465    0.00000055
Total (atomic population)................................................................  0.36083759


The numbers on the last column are the localization and delocalization indices. The first is the LI, and then the DIs with the other atoms in the system, ordered by distance to the atom that generates the table. For a given row, the other fields are, in order: the attractor ID, complete-list ID, and non-equivalent list ID of the atom, the atomic name, atomic number, and lattice vector translation to its position relative to the main cell, its crystallographic coordinates, and its distance to the atom that generates the table. At the very end of the table, the sum of the localization index and 0.5 times the sum of all the DIs is taken. This number is the atomic population (average number of electrons in the basin) and should coincide with the value given in the integration table above (column $2): * Integrated atomic properties # Id cp ncp Name Z mult Volume Pop Lap$2
1    1    1      mg   12  --   2.98869287E+01  1.55039497E+01 -3.29194756E+01  3.60837590E-01
2    2    2      o    8   --   8.88914848E+01  1.06091782E+01  3.29194756E+01  7.63916241E+00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum                            1.18778413E+02  2.61131279E+01  4.81747975E-12  8.00000000E+00


Final remark: because the DI calculation can take a long time, checkpoint files are automatically generated that contain the atomic overlap matrices (.pwc-sij) and the FAB integrals (.pwc-fa). These files are automatically read in second and subsequent runs.

The files for this example can be found in the example_11_10.tar.xz package, mgo subdirectory. The runit.sh script automatizes the steps above.

### MgO using a non-SCF calculation instead of open_grid.x

Exactly the same DI calculation can be carried out in a different way by using a non-self-consistent (nscf) calculation instead of the open_grid.x program. If the latter is available, there is really not much point in carrying out the DI calculation in this manner, save for testing purposes. The sequence of steps is the same as above except instead of running open_grid.x, we use pw.x to run:

&control
title='crystal',
prefix='crystal',
pseudo_dir='../../data',
calculation='nscf',
wf_collect=.true.,
verbosity='high',
outdir='.',
/
&system
ibrav=0,
celldm(1)=1.0,
nat=2,
ntyp=2,
ecutwfc=80.0,
ecutrho=320.0,
/
&electrons
conv_thr = 1d-8,
/
ATOMIC_SPECIES
o     15.999400 o.UPF
mg    24.305000 mg.UPF

ATOMIC_POSITIONS crystal
mg       0.500000000   0.000000000   0.000000000
o        0.000000000   0.500000000   0.500000000

K_POINTS crystal
64
0.00000000  0.00000000  0.00000000  1.562500e-02
[...]
0.75000000  0.75000000  0.75000000  1.562500e-02

CELL_PARAMETERS cubic
-0.000000000   3.901537427  -3.901537427
3.901540775   3.901536617  -0.000000811
3.901540775   0.000000811  -3.901536617


The calculation is non-self-consistent (calculation='nscf') and uses the converged wavefunction calculated in the self-consistent step. In addition, the list of k-points is passed by hand, and it contains the 64 points corresponding to an unshifted 4x4x4 grid. This list can be generated with the kmesh.pl utility from the wannier90 package:

$kmesh.pl 4 4 4  The rest of the DI calculation is exactly the same except all mentions to the crystal_open prefix (which correspond to the output of open_grid.x) are replaced by crystal and the list of k-points in the wannier90 input must be the same as in the non-self-consistent calculation. ## Graphite The sequence of steps for calculating the DIs in more complex systems is exactly the same as in MgO. Because the Wannier transformation is ill-defined in systems with partially occupied bands (metals), the calculation of DIs via Wannier functions does not work for those (see below for how to use Bloch states for this). However, semimetals such as graphite can be calculated without a problem. In the graphite example included in the files package, we use a 8x8x2 k-point grid. The resulting DIs clearly differentiate between DIs for atoms in the same graphene layer and in different layers: + Delocalization indices Each block gives information about a single atom in the main cell. First line: localization index. Next lines: delocalazation index with all atoms in the environment. Last line: sum of LI + 0.5 * DIs, equal to the atomic population. Distances are in bohr. # Attractor 1 (cp=1, ncp=1, name=C, Z=6) at: 0.0000000 0.0000000 0.2500000 # Id cp ncp Name Z Latt. vec. ---- Cryst. coordinates ---- Distance LI/DI Localization index....................................................................... 1.84476772 59 3 2 C 6 0 -1 0 0.3333333 -0.3333333 0.2500000 2.6795792 1.20502882 507 3 2 C 6 -1 -1 0 -0.6666667 -0.3333333 0.2500000 2.6795793 1.20297829 3 3 2 C 6 0 0 0 0.3333333 0.6666667 0.2500000 2.6795793 1.20496148 449 1 1 C 6 -1 0 0 -1.0000000 0.0000000 0.2500000 4.6411674 0.05704442 65 1 1 C 6 1 0 0 1.0000000 0.0000000 0.2500000 4.6411674 0.05704442 505 1 1 C 6 -1 -1 0 -1.0000000 -1.0000000 0.2500000 4.6411674 0.05696313 73 1 1 C 6 1 1 0 1.0000000 1.0000000 0.2500000 4.6411674 0.05696313 57 1 1 C 6 0 -1 0 0.0000000 -1.0000000 0.2500000 4.6411674 0.05679926 9 1 1 C 6 0 1 0 0.0000000 1.0000000 0.2500000 4.6411674 0.05679926 67 3 2 C 6 1 0 0 1.3333333 0.6666667 0.2500000 5.3591585 0.03623788 499 3 2 C 6 -1 -2 0 -0.6666667 -1.3333333 0.2500000 5.3591585 0.03538782 451 3 2 C 6 -1 0 0 -0.6666667 0.6666667 0.2500000 5.3591585 0.03534794 6 2 1 C 6 0 0 -1 0.0000000 0.0000000 -0.2500000 6.3268031 0.01795914 2 2 1 C 6 0 0 0 0.0000000 0.0000000 0.7500000 6.3268031 0.01796043 456 4 2 C 6 -1 0 -1 -0.3333333 0.3333333 -0.2500000 6.8708502 0.00629409 452 4 2 C 6 -1 0 0 -0.3333333 0.3333333 0.7500000 6.8708502 0.00629535 8 4 2 C 6 0 0 -1 0.6666667 0.3333333 -0.2500000 6.8708502 0.00629989 4 4 2 C 6 0 0 0 0.6666667 0.3333333 0.7500000 6.8708502 0.00629977 512 4 2 C 6 -1 -1 -1 -0.3333333 -0.6666667 -0.2500000 6.8708502 0.00627913 508 4 2 C 6 -1 -1 0 -0.3333333 -0.6666667 0.7500000 6.8708502 0.00627871 123 3 2 C 6 1 -1 0 1.3333333 -0.3333333 0.2500000 7.0895003 0.01039461 51 3 2 C 6 0 -2 0 0.3333333 -1.3333333 0.2500000 7.0895003 0.01034672 435 3 2 C 6 -2 -2 0 -1.6666667 -1.3333333 0.2500000 7.0895003 0.01030576 75 3 2 C 6 1 1 0 1.3333333 1.6666667 0.2500000 7.0895003 0.01038713 443 3 2 C 6 -2 -1 0 -1.6666667 -0.3333333 0.2500000 7.0895003 0.01031799 11 3 2 C 6 0 1 0 0.3333333 1.6666667 0.2500000 7.0895003 0.01035279 [...]  The first three atoms are the three in-plane covalent bonds. Atoms in the same layer (z = 0.25) show distinctly higher DIs than atoms in different layers, even if they are farther away. ## A molecular crystal: urea When a crystal composed of discrete units (a molecular crystal) is read into critic2, the program will automatically detect it and calculate the discrete fragment (molecules) that compose the crystal: + List of fragments in the system (2) # Id = fragment ID. nat = number of atoms in fragment. C-o-m = center of mass (bohr). # Discrete = is this fragment finite? # Id nat Center of mass Discrete 1 8 1.000000 0.500000 0.314384 Yes 2 8 0.500000 1.000000 0.685616 Yes  In the example used above, the urea crystal, there are two molecules in the unit cell each comprising 8 atoms. The DI calculation in a molecular crystal follows the same sequence of steps as in MgO. However, critic2 detects the existence of discrete units and offers more information. Specifically, the program calculates the molecular localization indices (the sum of the LIs of all atoms in the molecule plus the intramolecular DIs): * Integrated molecular properties + Localization indices # Mol LI(A) N(A) 1 23.26310183 23.99999842 2 23.26310705 24.00000158  Then, critic2 also writes to the output the list of intermolecular delocalization indices. These are calculated as the sum of the DIs between all atoms in the two interacting molecules. There is a table of DIs for every molecule in the unit cell (two in this case) and the DI information is sorted by distance to this molecule, in much the same way as atomic DIs: + Delocalization indices # Molecule 1 with 8 atoms at 1.000000 0.500000 0.314384 # Mol Latt. vec. ---- Center of mass (cryst) ---- Distance LI/DI Localization index................................................... 23.26310183 2 1 0 0 1.5000000 1.0000000 0.6856165 8.1298272 0.16615726 2 0 0 0 0.5000000 1.0000000 0.6856165 8.1298272 0.16615840 2 1 -1 0 1.5000000 0.0000000 0.6856165 8.1298272 0.16615814 2 0 -1 0 0.5000000 0.0000000 0.6856165 8.1298272 0.16615731 1 0 0 -1 1.0000000 0.5000000 -0.6856165 8.8514772 0.46900724 2 1 -1 -1 1.5000000 0.0000000 -0.3143835 9.2882471 0.07550946 2 1 0 -1 1.5000000 1.0000000 -0.3143835 9.2882471 0.07550956 2 0 0 -1 0.5000000 1.0000000 -0.3143835 9.2882471 0.07550951 2 0 -1 -1 0.5000000 0.0000000 -0.3143835 9.2882471 0.07550956 1 -1 0 0 0.0000000 0.5000000 0.3143835 10.5163259 0.01704341 1 0 -1 0 1.0000000 -0.5000000 0.3143835 10.5163259 0.01704340 1 -1 0 -1 0.0000000 0.5000000 -0.6856165 13.7456087 0.00045912 1 0 -1 -1 1.0000000 -0.5000000 -0.6856165 13.7456087 0.00045912 1 -1 -1 0 0.0000000 -0.5000000 0.3143835 14.8723308 0.00261252 1 -1 -1 -1 0.0000000 -0.5000000 -0.6856165 17.3070757 0.00049917 Total (atomic population)............................................ 23.99999842  Note that the sum of LI plus half of all DIs is the average molecular electron population. In this case, both molecules are neutral, since they are equivalent by symmetry. ## A spin-polarized case: FeO Calculating the DIs in a spin-polarized calculation is a bit more convoluted, but follows essentially the same procedure. In this example, we calculate the DIs in iron(II) oxide (FeO), which has the same structure type as MgO (rocksalt) but is ferromagnetic. The PAW and NC SCF calculations and the extraction of the density cube files is done in the same way as in MgO, except that the calculation is spin-polarized. In PAW, this is done:  nspin=2, starting_magnetization(1)=1.0, occupations='smearing', smearing='cold', degauss=0.1,  and in the NC calculation it is essential that we have completely filled bands, so we fix the total magnetization based on the result of PAW:  nspin=2, tot_magnetization=4.0,  This results in a total of 9 bands, as shown in the NC SCF output:  number of Kohn-Sham states= 9  With verbosity=high, we can verify that the spin-up channel has 9 occupied bands and spin-down has 5 occupied and 4 unoccupied bands: [...] ------ SPIN UP ------------ k = 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 ( 1639 PWs) bands (ev): -8.7938 7.7292 7.8322 7.9838 8.1232 8.1283 8.1355 8.1770 8.1880 occupation numbers 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 ------ SPIN DOWN ---------- k = 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 ( 1639 PWs) bands (ev): -8.2542 8.7307 8.7479 8.7545 11.2368 11.3607 11.4147 12.2011 12.4321 occupation numbers 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 [...]  An important difference relative to MgO happens when we calculate the MLWFs. The way wannier90 works is that it requires two different executions, one for each spin channel, where we need to indicate how many bands are occupied. The spin-up wannier90 input (feo_up.win) is simple because we want to use all the occupied bands in the transformation. It contains: num_wann = 9 num_bands = 9 [...]  and the corresponding pw2wannier90.x file to generate the integrals for wannier90 is: &inputpp prefix='crystal_open', seedname = 'feo_up', spin_component="up", write_mmn = .true., write_amn = .true., /  The wannier90 calculation is run in the same way as before: $ wannier90.x -pp feo_up.win
$pw2wannier90.x < feo.pw2wan.up.in | tee feo.pw2wan.up.out$ wannier90.x feo_up.win


which generates the feo_up.chk checkpoint file. We will read this file into critic2.

The spin-down case is a little more complicated because only a subset of the bands are filled. There are two different spin-dow wannier90 inputs: one for before and one for after pw2wannier90.x. The first input is:

num_wann = 5
num_bands = 9
exclude_bands : 6-9


where we indicate that, even though there are 9 bands in the calculation, we want to exclude bands 6 to 9, which are unoccupied. We write the files that request the calculation of the integrals in QE:

$wannier90.x -pp feo_dn.win  and then we run pw2wannier90.x with the input: &inputpp prefix='crystal_open', seedname = 'feo_dn', spin_component="down", write_mmn = .true., write_amn = .true., /  In the second wannier run, where the actual MLWFs are calculated, we only have 5 bands available, so it contains: num_wann = 5 num_bands = 5  To generate the MLWFs $ pw2wannier90.x < feo.pw2wan.dn.in | tee feo.pw2wan.dn.out
\$ wannier90.x feo_dn.win


This creates the feo_dn.chk checkpoint file with the rotation for the spin-down MLWFs.

Finally, we indicate that this is a spin-polarized case by passing both checkpoint files to critic2:

crystal feo.pwc
load rhoae.cube id rho
load feo.pwc feo_up.chk feo_dn.chk

integrable 2
integrable 2 deloc

yt


The interpretation of the critic2 output is essentially the same as in the MgO case.

## A metal: elemental sodium

The DIs in systems that have partially filled bands (metals) cannot be calculated with maximally localized Wannier functions at present, because the Wannier transformation is ill-defined. In this case, the Bloch states resulting from the SCF calculation are used directly. This results in a substantially higher computational cost of the DI calculation, but the calculation process is simpler because wannier90 needs not be used. The DIs can always be calculated using Bloch states, including the examples above, although there is no reason to do so if MLWFs can be used.

The steps to calculate DIs using Bloch states are:

1. Run a PAW SCF calculation with pw.x to obtain the all-electron density (rhoae.cube).

2. Run a norm-conserving SCF calculation using pw.x and the same ecutrho as in step 1. This will generate the KS states. This calculation needs to be run without k-point symmetry (i.e. with nosym=.true. and noinv=.true.).

3. Use pw2critic.x with smoothgrid=.true. to obtain the .pwc file.

4. The .pwc file is read in critic2 with an input like:

crystal na.pwc
load rhoae.cube
load na.pwc

integrable 2
integrable 2 deloc

bader


Note that the checkpoint files in this case are absent, but the input is other wise the same.

## DIs from a checkpoint file

Carrying out the DI integration generates two checkpoint files: one containing the atomic overlap matrices (with extension .pwc-sij) and another with the exchange-correlation atomic integrals (extension .pwc-fa). Either of them can be used to regenerate the DIs simply and quickly. The -fa files is actually calculated from the -sij file.

Because it tends to be big in some cases it is of interest to delete the .pwc file after a successful DI calculation. If you keep either of the checkpoints, then it is possible to re-generate the DIs without the .pwc or the wannier90 checkpoint files. You do this by doing:

crystal rhoae.cube
load rhoae.cube

integrable deloc_sijchk na.pwc-sij

bader


where the integrable property points to the checkpoint file directly. The -fa checkpoint file can be used instead:

integrable deloc_fachk na.pwc-fa


## Example files package

Files: example_11_10.tar.xz.