Density functionals based on the mathematical structure of the strong-interaction limit of DFT

While in principle exact, Kohn–Sham density functional theory—the workhorse of computational chemistry—must rely on approximations for the exchange–correlation functional. Despite staggering successes, present-day approximations still struggle when the effects of electron–electron correlation play a prominent role. The limit in which the electronic Coulomb repulsion completely dominates the exchange–correlation functional offers a well-defined mathematical framework that provides insight for new approximations able to deal with strong correlation. In particular, the mathematical structure of this limit, which is now well-established thanks to its reformulation as an optimal transport problem, points to the use of very different ingredients (or features) with respect to the traditional ones used in present approximations. We focus on strategies to use these new ingredients to build approximations for computational chemistry and highlight future promising directions.

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