On the Geometric Potential and the Relationship between the Exact Electron Factorization and Density Functional Theory

There are different ways to obtain an exact one-electron theory for a many-electron system, and the exact electron factorization (EEF) is one of them. In the EEF, the Schrödinger equation for one electron in the environment of other electrons is constructed. The environment provides the potentials that appear in this equation: A scalar potential $v^{\rm H}$ representing the energy of the environment and another scalar potential $v^{\rm G}$ as well as a vector potential that have geometric meaning. By replacing the interacting many-electron system with the non-interacting Kohn-Sham (KS) system, we show how the EEF is related to density functional theory (DFT) and we interpret the Hartree-exchange-correlation potential as well as the Pauli potential in terms of the EEF. In particular, we show that from the EEF viewpoint, the Pauli potential does not represent the difference between a fermionic and a bosonic non-interacting system, but that it corresponds to $v^{\rm G}$ and partly to $v^{\rm H}$ for the (fermionic) KS system. We then study the meaning of $v^{\rm G}$ in detail: Its geometric origin as a metric measuring the change of the environment is presented. Additionally, its behavior for a simple model of a homo- and heteronucler diatomic is investigated and interpreted with the help of a two-state model. In this way, we provide a physical interpretation for the one-electron potentials that appear in the EEF and in DFT.

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