Ab initio downfolding for electron-phonon-coupled systems: Constrained density-functional perturbation theory

We formulate an ab initio downfolding scheme for electron-phonon-coupled systems. In this scheme, we calculate partially renormalized phonon frequencies and electron-phonon coupling, which include the screening effects of high-energy electrons, to construct a realistic Hamiltonian consisting of low-energy electron and phonon degrees of freedom. We show that our scheme can be implemented by slightly modifying the density functional-perturbation theory (DFPT), which is one of the standard methods for calculating phonon properties from first principles. Our scheme, which we call the constrained DFPT, can be applied to various phonon-related problems, such as superconductivity, electron and thermal transport, thermoelectricity, piezoelectricity, dielectricity, and multiferroicity. We believe that the constrained DFPT provides a firm basis for the understanding of the role of phonons in strongly correlated materials. Here, we apply the scheme to fullerene superconductors and discuss how the realistic low-energy Hamiltonian is constructed.