<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On May 11, 2008, at 3:49 PM, Nicola Marzari wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">The convergence tests for ultrasoft carbon are actually posted on the<br>webpage:<br><br><a href="http://www.quantum-espresso.org/pseudo/upfdetails.php?upf=C.pbe-rrkjus.UPF">http://www.quantum-espresso.org/pseudo/upfdetails.php?upf=C.pbe-rrkjus.UPF</a><br><br>Interesting, sp2 carbon (graphite) looks a bit smoother than<br>sp3 carbon (diamond) (I do wonder why) but roughly the cutoffs<br>are the same.</blockquote><br></div><div>The energy gain in going form one cutoff to the next is very similar in the two plots, reflecting the same effective number of p electrons in graphite and carbon. If this number was different, I would expect the energy difference between two cutoffs to depend on the structure, because the s-channel potential should be softer than the p-channel one. For instance, I would expect the energy per atom in diamond to behave similarly as for an isolated atom in a sp3 configuration, but differently from an s2p2 atom (the energy of the latter should depend less on the cutoff). This is just a guess. Has anybody evidence of this?</div><div><br></div><div>In the specific case, the main difference between the convergence tests reported for diamond and graphite is not the absolute convergence, which is quite similar in the two cases, but rather that, for lower cutoffs, the E-vs-V curve looks more rugged for diamond than for graphite. Couldn't this be simply a consequence of the smaller number of k-points used for the former than for the latter? Discontinuities in the E-vs-V curve are due to the sudden increase in the number plane waves when the cutoff crosses some critical values (when an infinitesimal increase of the volume of the reciprocal-space sphere of radius \sqrt{ecut} lets one or more G vectors be included in the sphere). This critical values depend on the k-point around which the sphere is centered. Using more k-points usually has a compensating effect on the discontinuities. That's why the more the k-points, the less rugged the E-vs.V curves usually look. Of course, this does not indicate that the convergence is faster the larger the number of k-points, but only that the E-vs-V smoothness, by itself, is not a good indicator of cutoff convergence.</div><div><br></div><div>Am I wrong?</div><div><br></div><div>Stefano</div><div><br></div><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">---</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Stefano Baroni - SISSA</span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "> </span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">&</span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "> </span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">DEMOCRITOS National Simulation Center - Trieste</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">[+39] 040 3787 406 (tel) -528 (fax) / stefanobaroni (skype)</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; font-size: 12px; "><br style="font-size: 12px; "></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; font-size: 12px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">La morale est une logique de l'action comme la logique est une morale de la pensée - Jean Piaget</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></font></div></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Please, if possible, don't</span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "> </span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">send me MS Word or PowerPoint attachments</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Why? See:</span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "> </span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0023E9" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html">http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html</a></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0023E9" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></div></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></body></html>