  BaBiO3 is a material where formally Bi4+ ions with the half-filled 6s-states
form the alternating set of Bi3+ and Bi5+ ions resulting in a charge ordered
insulator. The charge ordering is accompanied by the breathing distortion of
the BiO6 octahedra (extension and contraction of the Bi-O bond lengths).
Standard Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations fail to obtain the
crystal structure instability caused by the pure breathing distortions.
Combining effects of the breathing distortions and tilting of the BiO6
octahedra allows DFT to reproduce qualitatively experimentally observed
insulator with monoclinic crystal structure but gives strongly underestimate
breathing distortion parameter and energy gap values. In the present work we
reexamine the BaBiO3 problem within the GGA+U method using a Wannier functions
basis set for the Bi 6s-band. Due to high oxidation state of bismuth in this
material the Bi 6s-symmetry Wannier function is predominantly extended
spatially on surrounding oxygen ions and hence differs strongly from a pure
atomic 6s-orbital. That is in sharp contrast to transition metal oxides (with
exclusion of high oxidation state compounds) where the major part a of d-band
Wannier function is concentrated on metal ion and a pure atomic d-orbital can
serve as a good approximation. The GGA+U calculation results agree well with
experimental data, in particular with experimental crystal structure parameters
and energy gap values. Moreover, the GGA+U method allows one to reproduce the
crystal structure instability due to the pure breathing distortions without
octahedra tilting.
