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1. Introductory lecture: when the density of the noninteracting reference system is not the density of the physical system in density functional theory

   https://doi.org/10.1039/D0FD00102C  

   Jin, Ye; Su, Neil Qiang; Chen, Zehua; Yang, Weitao (December 2020, Faraday Discussions)

   null (Ed.)

   A major challenge in density functional theory (DFT) is the development of density functional approximations (DFAs) to overcome errors in existing DFAs, leading to more complex functionals. For such functionals, we consider roles of the noninteracting reference systems. The electron density of the Kohn–Sham (KS) reference with a local potential has been traditionally defined as being equal to the electron density of the physical system. This key idea has been applied in two ways: the inverse calculation of such a local KS potential for the reference from a given density and the direct calculation of density and energy based on given DFAs. By construction, the inverse calculation can yield a KS reference with the density equal to the input density of the physical system. In application of DFT, however, it is the direct calculation of density and energy from a DFA that plays a central role. For direct calculations, we find that the self-consistent density of the KS reference defined by the optimized effective potential (OEP), is not the density of the physical system, when the DFA is dependent on the external potential. This inequality holds also for the density of generalized KS (GKS) or generalized OEP reference, which allows a nonlocal potential, when the DFA is dependent on the external potential. Instead, the density of the physical system, consistent with a given DFA, is given by the linear response of the total energy with respect to the variation of the external potential. This is a paradigm shift in DFT on the use of noninteracting references: the noninteracting KS or GKS references represent the explicit computational variables for energy minimization, but not the density of the physical system for external potential-dependent DFAs. We develop the expressions for the electron density so defined through the linear response for general DFAs, demonstrate the results for orbital functionals and for many-body perturbation theory within the second-order and the random-phase approximation, and explore the connections to developments in DFT. 

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2. Reformulation of thermally assisted-occupation density functional theory in the Kohn–Sham framework

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0087012  

   Yeh, Shu-Hao; Yang, Weitao; Hsu, Chao-Ping (May 2022, The Journal of Chemical Physics)

   We reformulate the thermally assisted-occupation density functional theory (TAO-DFT) into the Kohn–Sham single-determinant framework and construct two new post-self-consistent field (post-SCF) static correlation correction schemes, named rTAO and rTAO-1. In contrast to the original TAO-DFT with the density in an ensemble form, in which each orbital density is weighted with a fractional occupation number, the ground-state density is given by a single-determinant wavefunction, a regular Kohn–Sham (KS) density, and total ground state energy is expressed in the normal KS form with a static correlation energy formulated in terms of the KS orbitals. In post-SCF calculations with rTAO functionals, an efficient energy scanning to quantitatively determine θ is also proposed. The rTAOs provide a promising method to simulate systems with strong static correlation as original TAO, but simpler and more efficient. We show that both rTAO and rTAO-1 is capable of reproducing most results from TAO-DFT without the additional functional Eθ used in TAO-DFT. Furthermore, our numerical results support that, without the functional Eθ, both rTAO and rTAO-1 can capture correct static correlation profiles in various systems. 

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3. Correlation energy of the uniform electron gas determined by ground-state conditional probability density functional theory

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.165143  

   Perchak, Dennis; McCarty, Ryan J.; Burke, Kieron (April 2022, Physical review)

   Conditional-probability density functional theory (CP-DFT) is a formally exact method for finding correlation energies from Kohn-Sham DFT without evaluating an explicit energy functional. We present details on how to generate accurate exchange-correlation energies for the ground-state uniform gas. We also use the exchange hole in a CP antiparallel spin calculation to extract the high-density limit. We give a highly accurate analytic solution to the Thomas-Fermi model for this problem, showing its performance relative to Kohn-Sham and it may be useful at high temperatures. We explore several approximations to the CP potential. Results are compared to accurate parametrizations for both exchange-correlation energies and holes. 

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4. Virial relations in density embedding

   https://doi.org/10.1002/qua.26204  

   Jiang, Kaili; Mosquera, Martín A.; Oueis, Yan; Wasserman, Adam (March 2020, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry)

   Abstract The accuracy of charge‐transfer excitation energies, solvatochromic shifts, and other environmental effects calculated via various density‐embedding techniques depend critically on the approximations employed for the nonadditive noninteracting kinetic energy functional,. Approximating this functional remains an important challenge in electronic‐structure theory. To assist in the development and testing of approximations for, we derive two virial relations for fragments in molecules. These establish separate connections between the nonadditive kinetic energies of the noninteracting and interacting systems of electrons, and quantities such as the electron‐nuclear attraction forces, the partition (or embedding) energy and potential, and the Kohn‐Sham potentials of the system and its parts. We numerically verify both relations on diatomic molecules. 

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5. Numerical methods for Kohn–Sham density functional theory

   https://doi.org/10.1017/S0962492919000047  

   Lin, Lin; Lu, Jianfeng; Ying, Lexing (May 2019, Acta Numerica)

   Kohn–Sham density functional theory (DFT) is the most widely used electronic structure theory. Despite significant progress in the past few decades, the numerical solution of Kohn–Sham DFT problems remains challenging, especially for large-scale systems. In this paper we review the basics as well as state-of-the-art numerical methods, and focus on the unique numerical challenges of DFT. 

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