A New View on Density Corrected DFT: Can One Get a Better Answer for a Good Reason?

Abstract: Despite its widespread use, density functional theory (DFT) has several notable areas of failure; perhaps the most well-studied of these failures is self-interaction error (SIE). Density corrected DFT (DC-DFT) was proposed as a potential solution to systems where SIE causes traditional DFT to fail. The Hartree-Fock (HF) density is then used for cases where the DFT energy is suitable but the self-consistent density is erroneous. In this study, we investigate the utility of the higher quality orbital optimized MP2 densities in DC-DFT for barrier heights and halogen bonded complexes. For functionals such as PBE and r$^2$SCAN, find that these densities yield worse results than the HF density due to favorable cancellation between the density-driven and functional-driven errors, confirming a recent study. Error decomposition reveals functional driven error, not density driven error, to be the primary cause of inaccuracy in DFT calculations where SIE is prominent. We therefore advise caution when using HF-DFT, because the only rigorous way to remove large functional-driven errors in lower rungs of Jacob's ladder is by climbing to higher rungs that include exact exchange. We recommend that better functionals be improved by using a better density in SIE-sensitive cases. Examples support the value of this variant of DC-DFT. We also emphasize that DC-DFT potential energy surfaces have first derivative discontinuities at Coulson-Fischer points, in contrast to the second derivative discontinuities in SCF solutions.