Skip to content

Energy explosion and "Can't find even an electron!" error during relaxation (ION MOVE 2) #6997

@DanielZhao0432

Description

@DanielZhao0432

Describe the bug

I am performing a structure relaxation (relax) for a system consisting of a phosphate group (PO₄³⁻) adsorbed on a Mg-Ba alloy surface using ABACUS.
The first ionic step (ION MOVE 1) converges successfully with a Kohn-Sham energy around -17691 Ry.
Image
However, at the beginning of the second ionic step (ION MOVE 2), the energy fluctuates wildly:
ION MOVE 2, ELEC ITER 1: KS energy drops to ~ -34077 Ry.
ION MOVE 2, ELEC ITER 2: KS energy explodes to ~ 280984 Ry.
Eventually, the calculation crashes with the error: Can't find even an electron!.
Image

Expected behavior

The relaxation should proceed with reasonable energy changes between ionic steps, or the SCF should be robust enough to handle the new geometry.

To Reproduce

  1. System: Mg-Ba alloy surface (10-10) + Phosphate group.
  2. Calculation type: relax.
  3. ABACUS version: v3.9.0.23
  4. Pseudopotentials: ONCV
  5. Command: mpirun -np 32 abacus

Environment

No response

Additional Context

No response

Task list for Issue attackers (only for developers)

  • Verify the issue is not a duplicate.
  • Describe the bug.
  • Steps to reproduce.
  • Expected behavior.
  • Error message.
  • Environment details.
  • Additional context.
  • Assign a priority level (low, medium, high, urgent).
  • Assign the issue to a team member.
  • Label the issue with relevant tags.
  • Identify possible related issues.
  • Create a unit test or automated test to reproduce the bug (if applicable).
  • Fix the bug.
  • Test the fix.
  • Update documentation (if necessary).
  • Close the issue and inform the reporter (if applicable).

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    BugsBugs that only solvable with sufficient knowledge of DFT

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions