Adiabatic-connection fluctuation-dissipation DFT for the structural properties of solids-The renormalized ALDA and...

We present calculations of the correlation energies of crystalline solids and isolated systems within the adiabatic-connection fluctuation-dissipation formulation of density-functional theory. We perform a quantitative comparison of a set of model exchange-correlation kernels originally derived for the homogeneous electron gas (HEG), including the recently introduced renormalized adiabatic local-density approximation (rALDA) and also kernels which (a) satisfy known exact limits of the HEG, (b) carry a frequency dependence, or (c) display a 1/k(2) divergence for small wavevectors. After generalizing the kernels to inhomogeneous systems through a reciprocal-space averaging procedure, we calculate the lattice constants and bulk moduli of a test set of 10 solids consisting of tetrahedrally bonded semiconductors (C, Si, SiC), ionic compounds (MgO, LiCl, LiF), and metals (Al, Na, Cu, Pd). We also consider the atomization energy of the H2 molecule. We compare the results calculated with different kernels to those obtained from the random-phase approximation (RPA) and to experimental measurements. We demonstrate that the model kernels correct the RPA's tendency to overestimate the magnitude of the correlation energy whilst maintaining a high-accuracy description of structural properties.