1966/05/13 by L. J. Sham, W. Kohn · 1,004 citations
Chemistry · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #Advanced Physical and Chemical Molecular Interactions #Atomic physics #Electron #Fermi gas #Function (biology) #Ground state #Materials science #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures #Omega #Operator (biology) #Particle (ecology) #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Range (aeronautics) #Sigma #Simple (philosophy)
paper · doi:10.1103/physrev.145.561
published in Physical Review 145(2), 561-567 (American Institute of Physics)
openalex publication_date 1966/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
In previous publications (especially by Hohenberg, Kohn, and Sham), a theory of the ground state of an inhomogeneous interacting electron gas was developed, in which the electronic density n(r) played a dominant role. The present paper extends this approach to the one-particle Green's function and physical properties related to it, such as single-particle-like excitations and, in the case of metals, the Fermi surface. The Dyson mass operator \ensuremathΣ is studied as a function of its spatial arguments and as a functional of n(r), and, in both senses, it is found to have important short-range properties. An approximation for \ensuremathΣ, which is exact for systems of slowly varying density, is proposed. This leads to simple, explicit, Schr"odinger-like equations for the single-particle-like excitations, whose solution determines their energies and lifetimes. In particular, we show how to apply this procedure to metals.