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Perspective on natural orbital functional theory
Author(s) -
Piris Mario,
Ugalde Jesus M.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
international journal of quantum chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.484
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1097-461X
pISSN - 0020-7608
DOI - 10.1002/qua.24663
Subject(s) - rdm , perturbation theory (quantum mechanics) , electronic correlation , theoretical physics , density functional theory , statistical physics , computer science , electron , chemistry , physics , computational chemistry , quantum mechanics , computer network
The natural orbital functional (NOF) theory is briefly reviewed. The meaning of the top‐down and bottom‐up approaches for the construction of a NOF is analyzed. A particular reconstruction of the two‐particle reduced density matrix (2‐RDM) based on the cumulant expansion is discussed. The cumulant is expressed by two auxiliary matrices, which are constrained to certain bounds due to the N ‐representabilty conditions of the 2‐RDM. Appropriate forms of these matrices lead to different implementations known in the literature as PNOFi (i = 1–5). The strengths and weaknesses of PNOF5 are assessed. Its main strength is its ability to deal with the intrapair electron correlation at a reasonable computational cost. Its main limitation is the absence of the interpair electron correlation. The inclusion of the missing correlation via a multiconfigurational perturbation theory is shortly described. The growing interest in methods based on NOF theory points to a promising future in this field. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.