Density-functional theory using an optimized exchange-correlation potential

We have performed self-consistent calculations for first and second row atoms using a variant of density-functional theory, the optimized effective potential method, with an approximation due to Krieger, Li and Iafrate and a correlation-energy functional developed by Colle and Salvetti. The mean absolute deviation of first-row atomic ground-state energies from the exact non-relativistic values is 4.7 mEh in our scheme, as compared to 4.5 mEh in a recent configuration-interaction calculation. The proposed scheme is significantly more accurate than the conventional Kohn-Sham method while the numerical effort involved is about the same as for an ordinary Hartree-Fock calculation.