In this paper, we present a local convergence analysis of the self-consistent field (SCF) iteration using the density matrix as the state of a fixed-point iteration. Conditions for local convergence are formulated in terms of the spectral radius of the Jacobian of a fixed-point map. The relationship between convergence and certain properties of the problem is explored by deriving upper bounds expressed in terms of higher gaps. This gives more information regarding how the gaps between eigenvalues of the problem affect the convergence, and hence these bounds are more insightful on the convergence behaviour than standard convergence results. We also provide a detailed analysis to describe the difference between the bounds and the exact convergence factor for an illustrative example. Finally we present numerical examples and compare the exact value of the convergence factor with the observed behaviour of SCF, along with our new bounds and the characterization using the higher gaps. We provide heuristic convergence factor estimates in situations where the bounds fail to well capture the convergence.

We study and derive algorithms for nonlinear eigenvalue problems, where the system matrix depends on the eigenvector, or several eigenvectors (or their corresponding invariant subspace). The algorithms are derived from an implicit viewpoint. More precisely, we change the Newton update equation in a way that the next iterate does not only appear linearly in the update equation. Although the modifications of the update equation make the methods implicit, we show how corresponding iterates can be computed explicitly. Therefore, we can carry out steps of the implicit method using explicit procedures. In several cases, these procedures involve a solution of standard eigenvalue problems. We propose two modifications, one of the modifications leads directly to a well-established method (the self-consistent field iteration) whereas the other method is to our knowledge new and has several attractive properties. Convergence theory is provided along with several simulations which illustrate the properties of the algorithms.

We present a method to linearize, without approximation, a specific class of eigenvalue problems with eigenvector nonlinearities (NEPv), where the nonlinearities are expressed by scalar functions that are defined by a quotient of linear functions of the eigenvector. The exact linearization relies on an equivalent multiparameter problem (MEP) that contains the exact solutions of the NEPv. Due to the characterization of MEPs in terms of a generalized eigenvalue problem this provides a direct way to compute all NEPv solutions for small problems, and it opens up the possibility to develop locally convergent iterative methods for larger problems. Moreover, the linear formulation allows us to easily determine the number of solutions of the NEPv. We propose two numerical schemes that exploit the structure of the linearization: inverse iteration and residual inverse iteration. We show how symmetry in the MEP can be used to improve reliability and reduce computational cost of both methods. Two numerical examples verify the theoretical results and a third example shows the potential of a hybrid scheme that is based on a combination of the two proposed methods.

The self-consistent field (SCF) iteration, combined with its variants, is one of the most widely used algorithms in quantum chemistry. We propose a procedure to adapt the SCF iteration for the p-Laplacian eigenproblem, which is an important problem in the field of unsupervised learning. We formulate the p-Laplacian eigenproblem as a type of nonlinear eigenproblem with one eigenvector nonlinearity , which then allows us to adapt the SCF iteration for its solution after the application of suitable regularization techniques. The results of our numerical experiments confirm the viablity of our approach.