Entropic Density Functional Theory

TL;DR

This paper develops a new formulation of density functional theory based on entropic inference, applying maximum entropy principles to inhomogeneous fluids in thermal equilibrium, leading to a variational approach for determining particle densities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel entropic inference framework for density functional theory, connecting maximum entropy principles with variational methods in quantum and classical fluids.

Findings

Derivation of DFT variational principle from entropic inference

Introduction of trial density matrices parametrized by entropy considerations

Discussion of existing approximation schemes within the entropic framework

Abstract

A formulation of the density functional theory is constructed on the foundations of entropic inference. The theory is introduced as an application of maximum entropy for inhomogeneous fluids in thermal equilibrium. It is shown that entropic inference produces the variational principle of DFT when information about the expected density of particles is imposed. This process introduces a family of trial density-parametrized density matrices from which the preferred density matrix is found using the method of quantum maximum entropy. As illustrations some known approximation schemes of the theory are discussed.