The densities produced by the density functional theory: Comparison to full configuration interaction

We investigate one of the fundamental observables, electronic charge density, as produced by a number of popular functionals of the density functional theory (DFT): SVWN5, B3LYP, B3LYP, OLYP, O3LYP, BP86, B3P86, O3P86, and PBE using restricted and unrestricted orbitals. Measuring and comparing the quality of the densities could tell us more about the physical soundness of the functional models. The study is performed on the small molecules He, H2, LiH, H4 in an extensive range of correlation-consistent basis sets. We compare DFT densities to those of full configuration interaction (FCI) under the assumption that the FCI density in the largest employed basis set is sufficiently close to the exact one. For LiH and H4, we also compare the DFT densities to those of CCSD. The SVWN5 functional consistently shows the worst performance. The OPTX exchange functional regularly beats the Becke exchange. Among the best performers are all the hybrid functionals, the novel O3P86 being the most accurate in most cases. The popular functional B3LYP was consistently outmatched by O3LYP, and produced, in fact, some of the poorest densities among the hybrids. CCSD was found to produce much more accurate densities than any DFT functional in the case of LiH in equilibrium geometry, but was sometimes outperformed by DFT in the case of slightly stretched H4, where CCSD theory itself starts to break down. Surprisingly, as one stretches the H2 molecule, BP86 and PBE improve the description of density although such behavior is not observed in other systems. We conclude by reasoning how functionals such as B3LYP, despite being quite average for density, could still be very successful in predicting thermodynamic properties.