Self-Interaction-Corrected Calculation of the Static Polarizability of Small Metal Spheres

Abstract

We calculate selfconsistently the static electric polarizability of small metal spheres using density-functional theory in the local density approximation and the spherical jellium approximation. The erroneous interactions of the electron with itself contained in the usual density-functional theory are corrected. We obtain good quantitative agreement with the polarizabilities of Na-cluster. Previous calculations have given values which were about 20% lower than our results. The improvement is mainly due to the elimination of the erroneous screening of the electron by its own induced charge contained in previous calculations.