Density functional results for isotropic and anisotropic multipole polarizabilities and C6, C7 and C8 Van der Waals dispersion coefficients for molecules.

The generalized gradient-approximated (GGA) energy functionals used in density functional theory (DFT) provide accurate results for many different properties. However, one of their weaknesses lies in the fact that Van der Waals forces are not described. In spite of this, it is possible to obtain reliable long-range potential energy surfaces within DFT. In this paper, we use time-dependent density functional response theory to obtain the Van der Waals dispersion coefficients C6, C7, and C8 (both isotropic and anisotropic). They are calculated from the multipole polarizabilities at imaginary frequencies of the two interacting molecules. Alternatively, one might use one of the recently-proposed Van der Waals energy functionals for well-separated systems, which provide fairly good approximations to our isotropic results. Results with the local density approximation (LDA), Becke–Perdew (BP) GGA and the Van Leeuwen–Baerends (LB94) exchange-correlation potentials are presented for the multipole polarizabilities and the dispersion coefficients of several rare gases, diatomics and the water molecule. The LB94 potential clearly performs best, due to its correct Coulombic asymptotic behavior, yielding results which are close to those obtained with many-body perturbation theory (MBPT). The LDA and BP results are systematically too high for the isotropic properties. This becomes progressively worse for the higher dispersion coefficients. The results for the relative anisotropies are quite satisfactory for all three potentials, however

Assessment of Conventional Density Functional Schemes for Computing the Polarizabilities and Hyperpolarizabilities of Conjugated Oligomers: An Ab Initio Investigation of Polyacetylene Chains

DFT schemes based on conventional and less conventional exchange-correlation (XC) functionals have been employed to determine the polarizability and second hyperpolarizability of π-conjugated polyacetylene chains. These functionals fail in one or more of several ways: (i) the correlation correction to α is either much too small or in the wrong direction, leading to an overestimate; (ii) γ is significantly overestimated; (iii) the chain length dependence is excessively large, particularly for γ and for the more alternant system; and (iv) the bond length alternation effects on γ are either underestimated or qualitatively incorrect. The poor results with the asymptotically correct van Leeuwen-Baerends XC potential show that the overestimations are not related to the asymptotic behavior of the potential. These failures are described in terms of the separate effects of the exchange and the correlation parts of the XC functionals. They are related to the short-sightedness of the XC potentials which are relatively insensitive to the polarization charge induced by the external electric field at the chain ends. © 1998 American Institute of Physics

The distributed ASCI supercomputer project

The Distributed ASCI Supercomputer (DAS) is a homogeneous wide-area distributed system consisting of four cluster computers at different locations. DAS has been used for research on communication software, parallel languages and programming systems, schedulers, parallel applications, and distributed applications. The paper gives a preview of the most interesting research results obtained so far in the DAS project