<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear Hanghui: I am not very familiar with (nor very fond of) finite-electric-filed calculations. <div>I agree that a finite electric field should produce a finite force on the atoms of a polar material, such al LaAlO3. Why it does not, in your case, I do not know. You may want to provide more info on the details of your calculation.</div><div>As for your general question, the answer is contained in any textbook of lattice dynamics. One readable reference (as opposed to the rather unreadable, though classic Born and Huang, dynamical theory of crystal lattices) is Harald Bottger, Principles of the theory of lattice dynamics. The necessary algebra in a simplified form (although not the final result) can be also found in our RMP paper:</div><div><div><br></div><div>@article{Baroni-RMP:01,</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">        </span>Author = {Baroni, Stefano and de Gironcoli, Stefano and Dal Corso, Andrea and Giannozzi, Paolo},</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">        </span>Journal = {Rev. Mod. Phys.},</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">        </span>Number = {2},</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">        </span>Pages = {515-562},</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">        </span>Title = {Phonons and related crystal properties from density-functional perturbation theory},</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">        </span>Volume = {73},</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">        </span>Year = {2001}}</div><div>see eqs. 89 & ff.</div><div><br></div><div>Cheers - SB</div><div><br></div><div><div>On Jul 23, 2008, at 5:22 PM, alan chen wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">Dear Stefano,<br> Thank you very much for your previous email. <br> However, I am now calculating esp_0 of bulk LaAlO3. For a polar material with large dielectric constant, I expect esp_0 is much larger than esp_infty. But since all the forces on the atoms are zero, the code does not know how to move the atoms when I relax them.<br> By the way, how to calculate esp_0 in principle? Shall I relax the structure while turning on the electric field?<br> Sorry to bother you again.<br> <br> Hanghui<br> Department of Physics,<br> Yale University<br></blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <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; "><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; "><a href="http://www.sissa.it/~baroni">http://www.sissa.it/~baroni</a> / [+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></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></div></body></html>