Constructing a Non-additive Non-interacting Kinetic Energy Functional Approximation for Covalent Bonds from Exact Conditions

Abstract: We present a non-decomposable approximation for the non-additive non-interacting kinetic energy (NAKE) for covalent bonds based on the exact behavior of the von Weizs\"{a}cker (vW) functional in regions dominated by one orbital. This covalent approximation (CA) seamlessly combines the vW and the Thomas-Fermi (TF) functional with a switching function of the fragment densities constructed to satisfy exact constraints. It also makes use of ensembles and fractionally-occupied spin-orbitals to yield highly accurate NAKE for stretched bonds while outperforming other standard NAKE approximations near equilibrium bond lengths. We tested the CA within Partition-Density Functional Theory (P-DFT) and demonstrated its potential to enable fast and accurate P-DFT calculations.