Density functional theory Hartree-Fock exchange

Compared with density functional methods, Hartree-Fock-based approaches play a less important role in electronic structure calculations of solids and surfaces, although the exact treatment of the exchange terms is conceptually very appealing. The inclusion of electronic correlation effects in the form of perturbation theory, coupled cluster methods, or configuration interaction expansion is very well developed for the calculation of molecular properties. However, in most cases these approaches are not suited for solid state systems. 

The application of density functional theory to isolated, organic molecules is still in relative infancy compared with the use of Hartree-Fock methods. There continues to be a steady stream of publications designed to assess the performance of the various approaches to DFT. As we have discussed there is a plethora of ways in which density functional theory can be implemented with different functional forms for the basis set (Gaussians, Slater type orbitals, or numerical), different expressions for the exchange and correlation contributions within the local density approximation, different expressions for the gradient corrections and different ways to solve the Kohn-Sham equations to achieve self-consistency. This contrasts with the situation for Hartree-Fock calculations, wlrich mostly use one of a series of tried and tested Gaussian basis sets and where there is a substantial body of literature to help choose the most appropriate method for incorporating post-Hartree-Fock methods, should that be desired. 

In this section we will approach the question which is at the very heart of density functional theory can we possibly replace the complicated N-electron wave function with its dependence on 3N spatial plus N spin variables by a simpler quantity, such as the electron density After using plausibility arguments to demonstrate that this seems to be a sensible thing to do, we introduce two early realizations of this idea, the Thomas-Fermi model and Slater s approximation of Hartree-Fock exchange defining the X(/ method. The discussion in this chapter will prepare us for the next steps, where we will encounter physically sound reasons why the density is really all we need. 

Let us introduce another early example by Slater, 1951, where the electron density is exploited as the central quantity. This approach was originally constructed not with density functional theory in mind, but as an approximation to the non-local and complicated exchange contribution of the Hartree-Fock scheme. We have seen in the previous chapter that the exchange contribution stemming from the antisymmetry of the wave function can be expressed as the interaction between the charge density of spin o and the Fermi hole of the same spin... 

What does this mean We have replaced the non-local and therefore fairly complicated exchange term of Hartree-Fock theory as given in equation (3-3) by a simple approximate expression which depends only on the local values of the electron density. Thus, this expression represents a density functional for the exchange energy. As noted above, this formula was originally explicitly derived as an approximation to the HF scheme, without any reference to density functional theory. To improve the quality of this approximation an adjustable, semiempirical parameter a was introduced into the pre-factor Cx which leads to the Xa or Hartree-Fock-Slater (HFS) method which enjoyed a significant amount of popularity among physicists, but never had much impact in chemistry,... 

Gritsenko, O. V., Schipper, P. R. T., Baerends, E. J., 1997, Exchange and Correlation Energy in Density Functional Theory. Comparison of Accurate DFT Quantities With Traditional Hartree-Fock Based Ones and Generalized Gradient Approximations for the Molecules Li2, N2, F2 , J. Chem. Phys., 107, 5007. 

Lelj, F., C. Adamo, and V. Barone. 1994. Role of Hartree-Fock exchange in density functional theory. Some aspects of the conformational potential energy surface of glycine in the gas phase. Chem. Phys. Lett. 230, 189. 

Of the many quantum chemical approaches available, density-functional theory (DFT) has over the past decade become a key method, with applications ranging from interstellar space, to the atmosphere, the biosphere and the solid state. The strength of the method is that whereas conventional ah initio theory includes electron correlation by use of a perturbation series expansion, or increasing orders of excited state configurations added to zero-order Hartree-Fock solutions, DFT methods inherently contain a large fraction of the electron correlation already from the start, via the so-called exchange-correlation junctional. 

The density functional theory (DFT) [32] represents the major alternative to methods based on the Hartree-Fock formalism. In DFT, the focus is not in the wavefunction, but in the electron density. The total energy of an n-electron system can in all generality be expressed as a summation of four terms (equation 4). The first three terms, making reference to the noninteracting kinetic energy, the electron-nucleus Coulomb attraction and the electron-electron Coulomb repulsion, can be computed in a straightforward way. The practical problem of this method is the calculation of the fourth term Exc, the exchange-correlation term, for which the exact expression is not known. 

We review in this Section some recent work by Ludena, Lopez-Boada and Pino [113] on the construction of energy functionals that depend explicitly upon the one-particle density, but which are generated in the context of the local-scaling-transformation version of density functional theory. This work does not consider the general case involving exchange and correlation, but restricts itself to the exchange-only Hartree-Fock approximation. 

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