Variational approach to inhomogeneous electron liquids: Application to metallic hydrogen

Abstract

A variational approach is developed to treat inhomogeneous electron liquids at metallic densities using a correlated wave function. The single-particle part of the wave function is obtained by band calculation with the aid of a suitable effective one-particle potential. Many-body correlations are accounted for by a correlation factor of the Jastrow form. The Chakravarty-Woo hierarchy of integral equations is derived and solved for the one-particle distribution (density function) and pair correlation function. The results are used to evaluate the energy. The method is applied to a static lattice model of metallic hydrogen. Calculations are performed for different densities using the variational formalism and density-functional methods. Comparison is also made to calculations performed with different techniques.