Rigid muffin-tin approximation in plane-wave codes for fast modeling of phonon-mediated superconductors

Abstract

We present a pseudopotential-based plane-wave implementation of the rigid muffin-tin approximation (RMTA), offering a computationally efficient alternative to its traditional use in all-electron codes. This approach enables the evaluation of angular-momentum-resolved electron-phonon matrix elements and McMillan-Hopfield parameters of not only elemental transition metals but also their compounds. The results are benchmarked against full-potential linearized augmented plane wave calculations, showing excellent agreement. We further outline a practical route to extract atom- and symmetry-type-resolved electron-phonon coupling constants. By enabling the use of RMTA descriptors within high-throughput workflows, this framework significantly lowers the computational cost of screening candidate superconductors, providing a valuable tool for materials discovery.