 ##  [Density Functional Theory](/index.php/density-functional-theory) 

  ##  [Density Functional Theory](https://natural.quantumdictionary.io/density-functional-theory-0) 

  

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**Natural &amp; Formal Sciences Dictionary**

 







 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Definition

In this dictionary, density functional theory (DFT) is the quantum‑mechanical framework that reformulates the many‑electron ground‑state problem in terms of the electron density as the fundamental variable and represents the total energy as a functional of that density; practical implementations use approximated exchange–correlation functionals and the Kohn–Sham mapping to auxiliary single‑particl