We reformulate and generalize the uniqueness and existence proofs of
time-dependent density-functional theory. The central idea is to restate the
fundamental one-to-one correspondence between densities and potentials as a
global fixed point question for potentials on a given time-interval. We show
that the unique fixed point, i.e. the unique potential generating a given
density, is reached as the limiting point of an iterative procedure. The
one-to-one correspondence between densities and potentials is a straightforward
result provided that the response function of the divergence of the internal
forces is bounded. The existence, i.e. the v-representability of a density, can
be proven as well provided that the operator norms of the response functions of
the members of the iterative sequence of potentials have an upper bound. The
densities under consideration have second time-derivatives that are required to
satisfy a condition slightly weaker than being square-integrable. This approach
avoids the usual restrictions of Taylor-expandability in time of the uniqueness
theorem by Runge and Gross [Phys.Rev.Lett.52, 997 (1984)] and of the existence
theorem by van Leeuwen [Phys.Rev.Lett. 82, 3863 (1999)]. Owing to its
generality, the proof not only answers basic questions in density-functional
theory but also has potential implications in other fields of physics.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
