Inhomogeneous Electron Gas

This paper deals with the ground state of an interacting electron gas in an external potential v(r). It is proved that there exists a universal functional of the density, F[n(r)], independent of v(r), such that the expression E≡∫v(r)n(r)dr+F[n(r)] has as its minimum value the correct ground-state energy associated with v(r). The functional F[n(r)] is then discussed for two situations: (1) n(r)=n₀+ñ(r), ñ/n₀≪1, and (2) n(r)=ϕ(r/r₀) with ϕ arbitrary and r₀→∞. In both cases F can be expressed entirely in terms of the correlation energy and linear and higher order electronic polarizabilities of a uniform electron gas. This approach also sheds some light on generalized Thomas-Fermi methods and their limitations. Some new extensions of these methods are presented.