Interrogating the Becke’05 density functional for non-locality information

In two papers, Becke [J. Chem. Phys. 119, 2972 (2003) and J. Chem. Phys. 122, 064101 (2005)] introduced Kohn-Sham density-functional approximations for static and dynamical correlation to be partnered with 100 percent exactly computed exchange. Known as “B05,” this was the first non-local correlation model designed to work with the full non-locality of exact (or Hartree-Fock) exchange. Non-locality issues, often referred to as the “delocalization” problem, are among the most vexing problems in density-functional theory today. How much exact exchange should be used in a hybrid functional? What value of the range parameter should be used in a long-range corrected functional? Questions such as these abound, and the answers are system dependent. The physics of non-locality is built into the B05 functional in a natural way, and one wonders, therefore, if B05 might provide a mechanism to answer such questions. Here we explore a variational procedure, “B05min,” to do so. We compute dipole moments of 52 small molecules and find that B05min delivers better moments than parent hybrid and long-range corrected functionals. Furthermore, B05min provides a priori optimum exact-exchange mixing fractions and range parameters for the parent functionals, whose values agree with literature values fit to experimental data.