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Abstract

Physically valid and numerically efficient approximations for the exchange and correlation energy are critical for reduced-density-matrix-functional theory to become a widely used method in electronic structure calculations. Here we examine the physical limits of power functionals of the form f(n,n′) = (nn′)^α for the scaling function in the exchange-correlation energy. To this end we obtain numerically the minimizing momentum distributions for the three- and two-dimensional homogeneous electron gas, respectively. In particular, we examine the limiting values for the power α to yield physically sound solutions that satisfy the Lieb-Oxford lower bound for the exchange-correlation energy and exclude pinned states with the condition n(k) < 1 for all wave vectors k. The results refine the constraints previously obtained from trial momentum distributions. We also compute the values for α that yield the exact correlation energy and its kinetic part for both the three- and two-dimensional electron gas. In both systems, narrow regimes of validity and accuracy are found at α ≳ 0.6 and at r_s ≳ 10 for the density parameter, corresponding to relatively low densities.