The structure of the second-order reduced density matrix in density matrix functional theory and its construction from formal criteria

摘要

Some formal requirements for the second-order reduced density matrix are discussed in the context of density matrix functional theory.They serve as a basis for the ad hoc construction of the second-order reduced density matrix in terms of the first-order reduced density matrix and lead to implicit functionals where the occupation numbers of the natural orbitals are obtained as diagonal elements of an idempotent matrix the elements of which represent the variational parameters to be optimized.The numerical results obtained from a first realization of such an implicit density matrix functional give excellent agreement with the results of fll ocnfiguration interaction calcualtions for four-electron systems like LiH and Be.Results for H_2O taken as an example for a somewhat larger molecule are numerically less satisfactory burt still give reasoanble occupation numbers of the natural orbitals and indicate the capability of density matrix functional theory to cope with static electron correlation.