Moment Tensor Potentials: A Class of Systematically Improvable Interatomic Potentials

Density functional theory offers a very accurate way of computing materials properties from first principles. However, it is too expensive for modeling large-scale molecular systems whose properties are, in contrast, computed using interatomic potentials. The present paper considers, from a mathematical point of view, the problem of constructing interatomic potentials that approximate a given quantum-mechanical interaction model. In particular, a new class of systematically improvable potentials is proposed, analyzed, and tested on an existing quantum-mechanical database.