Error in symmetry detection

Problems running VASP: crashes, internal errors, "wrong" results.


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widom
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Error in symmetry detection

#1 Post by widom » Wed Aug 14, 2024 7:30 pm

I attach a structure that has space group 227 (cubic, point group m-3m) according to findsym but VASP reports D_3d point symmetry. The structure is a decorated supercell of a Heusler compound. The full VASP input and standard out are attached. "grep sym OUTCAR" to see symmetry report. This occurs in VASP 5.4.1 and also 6.4.1.
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ferenc_karsai
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Re: Error in symmetry detection

#2 Post by ferenc_karsai » Fri Aug 16, 2024 10:16 am

The symmetry output in VASP has two lines:
The first is "The static configuration has the point symmetry D_3d." This is not the point group but the point symmetry operations without any translation (only 12 in this case). This is meant by "static configuration".

The second line "The point group associated with its full space group is O_h ." is probably the more important for you. This reports the point group of the system if translation operations are also taken into account (so point group operations that arise if atoms are translated). O_h is the same as m-3m. I also checked the structure in Findsym which reports O_h spacegroup. So both codes agree.

Unfortunately VASP doesn't output the space group although all spacegroup operations are known. You can also output all the space group and point group operations by setting NWRITE=3 in the INCAR file.

widom
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Re: Error in symmetry detection

#3 Post by widom » Fri Aug 16, 2024 1:55 pm

Git it, thanks so much for the info.

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