Abstract
Recent progress in the formulation of a fully dynamical local approximation to time-dependent density functional theory appeals to the longitudinal and transverse components of the exchange and correlation kernel in the linear current-density response of the homogeneous fluid at long wavelength. Both components are evaluated for the electron gas in dimensionality and by an approximate decoupling in the equation of motion for the current density, which accounts for processes of excitation of two electron-hole pairs. Each pair is treated in the random phase approximation, but the role of exchange and correlation is also examined; in addition, final-state exchange processes are included phenomenologically so as to satisfy the exactly known high-frequency behaviors of the kernel. The transverse and longitudinal spectra involve the same decay channels and are similar in shape. A two-plasmon threshold in the spectrum for two-pair excitations in leads to a sharp minimum in the real part of the exchange and correlation kernel at twice the plasma frequency. In the same mechanism leads to a broad spectral peak and to a broad minimum in the real part of the kernel, as a consequence of the dispersion law of the plasmon vanishing at long wavelength. The numerical results have been fitted to simple analytic functions.
- Received 12 March 1998
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.58.12758
©1998 American Physical Society