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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pittalis, Stefano, Troiani, Filippo, Angeli, Celestino, D'Amico, Irene, Gould, Tim
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.01688
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Table of Contents:
  • Understanding electron localization in molecules and materials plays a central role in electronic structure theory, and will increase in importance with the rise of data-driven approaches. The electron localization function (ELF) is widely used to visualize electron organization in molecules and materials, and it remains a central ingredient in modern density-functional approximations. Yet its formulation retains highly empirical elements. Here we introduce a quantum-information measure of electron localization derived from the concurrence of a correlated two-spin mixed state. This construction yields a genuine two-point localization indicator grounded in quantum-information theory, avoiding the heuristic normalization and chosen nonlinear remapping of the ELF. We show that atomic shells, covalent and ionic bonds, lone pairs, molecular dissociation, and charge-transfer processes are captured. The method is straightforward to evaluate numerically.