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Orbital currents in the Colle-Salvetti correlation energy functional and the degeneracy problem
S Pittalis1, S Kurth, S Sharma
1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Freie Universität Berlin, Arnimallee 14, D-14195 Berlin, Germany.
Abstract:
Popular density functionals for the exchange-correlation energy typically fail to reproduce the degeneracy of different ground states of open-shell atoms. As a remedy, functionals which explicitly depend on the current density have been suggested. We present an analysis of this problem by investigating functionals that explicitly depend on the Kohn-Sham orbitals. Going beyond the exact-exchange approximation by adding correlation in the form of the Colle-Salvetti functional, we show how current-dependent terms enter the Colle-Salvetti expression and their relevance is evaluated. A very good description of the degeneracy of ground states for atoms of the first and second rows of the Periodic Table is obtained.
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