Density functional results for isotropic and anisotropic multipole polarizabilities and C6, C7, and C8 Van der Waals dispersion coefficients for molecules

The generalized gradient-approximated (GGA) energy functionals used in density functional theory (DFT) provide accurate results for many different properties. However, one of their weaknesses lies in the fact that Van der Waals forces are not described. In spite of this, it is possible to obtain reliable long-range potential energy surfaces within DFT. In this paper, we use time-dependent density functional response theory to obtain the Van der Waals dispersion coefficients C6, C7, and C8 (both isotropic and anisotropic). They are calculated from the multipole polarizabilities at imaginary frequencies of the two interacting molecules. Alternatively, one might use one of the recently-proposed Van der Waals energy functionals for well-separated systems, which provide fairly good approximations to our isotropic results. Results with the local density approximation (LDA), Becke–Perdew (BP) GGA and the Van Leeuwen–Baerends (LB94) exchange-correlation potentials are presented for the multipole polarizabilities and the dispersion coefficients of several rare gases, diatomics and the water molecule. The LB94 potential clearly performs best, due to its correct Coulombic asymptotic behavior, yielding results which are close to those obtained with many-body perturbation theory (MBPT). The LDA and BP results are systematically too high for the isotropic properties. This becomes progressively worse for the higher dispersion coefficients. The results for the relative anisotropies are quite satisfactory for all three potentials, however.