Optimizing Density Functional Theory for Strain-Dependent Magnetic Properties of Monolayer MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ with Diffusion Monte Carlo

Abstract

Monolayer MnBi$_{2}$Te$_{4}$ (MBT) is an intrinsically magnetic topological insulator whose magnetic response is strongly affected by strain and electron correlation. In density functional theory with an on-site Hubbard correction (DFT+$U$), however, predictions vary substantially with the choice of Hubbard $U$, making it difficult to establish a reliable strain-dependent picture of magnetism in this system. Here we use diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) to benchmark DFT+$U$ for monolayer MBT and to determine an effective $U$ as a function of strain. We find that the predicted magnetic phase diagram depends strongly on $U$, indicating that a single fixed value is not sufficient across the strain range considered. DMC nodal optimization further shows that the optimal $U$ increases with strain magnitude and is well captured by a simple quadratic form. When this DMC-informed strain-dependent $U$ is used in PBE+$U$, the calculated Mn local moments are brought into close agreement with DMC and are improved relative to commonly used fixed-$U$ choices. These results show that, for monolayer MBT, correlation strength itself should be treated as strain dependent, and they provide a practical many-body-guided strategy for improving strain-dependent DFT+$U$ descriptions of magnetic van der Waals materials.