Density Functional Theory for Electronic Excited States

Abstract

This chapter provides a basic introduction to excited-state extensions of density functional theory (DFT), including time-dependent (TD-)DFT in both its linear-response and its explicitly time-dependent formulations. As applied to the Kohn-Sham DFT ground state, linear-response theory affords an eigenvalue-type problem for the excitation energies in a basis of singly-excited Slater determinants, and is widely known simply as "TDDFT" despite its frequency-domain formulation. This form of TDDFT is the mostly widely-used quantum-chemical method for excited states, due to a favorable combination of low cost and reasonable accuracy. The chapter surveys the accuracy of linear-response TDDFT, which is generally more sensitive to the details of the exchange-correlation functional as compared to ground-state DFT, and also describes some known systemic problems exhibited by this approach. Some of those problems can be corrected on a case-by-case basis using orbital-optimized, excited-state self-consistent field (SCF) calculations, in what is known as excited-state Kohn-Sham theory or a "Delta-SCF" procedure, a class of methods that includes restricted open-shell Kohn-Sham theory. Recent successes of these approaches are highlighted, including double excitations and core-level excitations. Finally, explicitly time-dependent (or "real-time") TDDFT involves propagation of the molecular orbitals in time following an external perturbation, according to the Kohn-Sham analogue of the time-dependent Schroedinger equation. The time-dependent approach has been used to model strong-field electron dynamics, and in the weak-field limit it provides a route to broadband spectra based on the time evolution of the dipole moment function. This is useful for describing high-energy excitations (as in x-ray spectroscopy) and in systems where the density of states is high, as demonstrated by a few examples.