Assessing the suitability of the Thomas-Fermi-von Weizsäcker density functional for itinerant magnetism

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Main Authors: Thapa, Bishal, Suryanarayana, Phanish, Mazin, Igor I.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Thapa, Bishal
Suryanarayana, Phanish
Mazin, Igor I.
author_facet Thapa, Bishal
Suryanarayana, Phanish
Mazin, Igor I.
contents We assess the ability of the Thomas--Fermi--von Weizsacker (TFW) functional within orbital-free density functional theory (DFT) to describe itinerant magnetism. Magnetic stability is evaluated through the susceptibility obtained from the second derivative of the total energy with respect to the net magnetization. Calculations are performed for the paramagnetic metals Al and Pd and the canonical ferromagnets Fe, Co, and Ni, with the results benchmarked against Kohn--Sham DFT. The orbital-free results show poor agreement with the Kohn--Sham predictions, failing to capture even the qualitative trends. Using the orbital-free ground-state density with the Kohn--Sham functional in a non-self-consistent calculation yields reasonable qualitative agreement, although the quantitative agreement remains limited. These results highlight fundamental limitations of the TFW functional for describing itinerant magnetism.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_15850
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Assessing the suitability of the Thomas-Fermi-von Weizsäcker density functional for itinerant magnetism
Thapa, Bishal
Suryanarayana, Phanish
Mazin, Igor I.
Materials Science
Strongly Correlated Electrons
We assess the ability of the Thomas--Fermi--von Weizsacker (TFW) functional within orbital-free density functional theory (DFT) to describe itinerant magnetism. Magnetic stability is evaluated through the susceptibility obtained from the second derivative of the total energy with respect to the net magnetization. Calculations are performed for the paramagnetic metals Al and Pd and the canonical ferromagnets Fe, Co, and Ni, with the results benchmarked against Kohn--Sham DFT. The orbital-free results show poor agreement with the Kohn--Sham predictions, failing to capture even the qualitative trends. Using the orbital-free ground-state density with the Kohn--Sham functional in a non-self-consistent calculation yields reasonable qualitative agreement, although the quantitative agreement remains limited. These results highlight fundamental limitations of the TFW functional for describing itinerant magnetism.
title Assessing the suitability of the Thomas-Fermi-von Weizsäcker density functional for itinerant magnetism
topic Materials Science
Strongly Correlated Electrons
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15850