ABINIT Discussion Forums

Hi everyone.
I'm a newbie in DFT so all my questions are related to the basics of the method. In order to understand the way abinit works I need to understand the main principles of plain wave dft. So here is scenario of the calculations which is used, I think, to calculate solids' properties. Tell me if I'm wrong anywhere.

1. Take the 1-st electron under consideration and choose 1-st k-point
1a. Calculate 3 potentials in the reciprocal space (E_ion, E_Hartree, E_XC)
1b. Set E_cutoff (this defines how many waves will be in the expansion of the Bloch wave)
1c. Calculate the components of the Hamiltonian matrix and diagonalize it to find the energy of the state under consideration
1d. Go to the 2-nd k-point and perform 1a-1c, ..., go to the last k-point and perform 1a-1c
2. Take the 1-st electron and perform 1
...
i. Take the last electron and perform 1

I understand this is not a detailed description of the process, but I hope it shows the main stages. So tell me pease if I'm wrong or right.

Thanks in advance!

Dear R_S

As mentioned in
http://www.abinit.org/documentation/hel ... lcome.html
you should read some basic material about DFT + planewaves.

Best regards,
X