The now classic optimized-effective-potential (OEP) approach of Sharp and Horton [Phys Rev. 90, 317 (1953)] and Talman and Shadwick [Phys. Rev. A 14, 36 (1976)] seeks the local potential that is variationally optimized to best approximate the Hartree-Fock exchange operator. The resulting OEP can be identified as the exchange potential of Kohn-Sham density-functional theory. The present work generalizes this OEP approach to treat the correlated case, and shows that the Kohn-Sham exchange-correlation potential is the variationally best local approximation to the exchange-correlation self-energy. This provides a variational derivation of the equation for the exact exchange-correlation potential that was derived by Sham and Schlüter using a density condition. Implications for an approximate physical interpretation of the Kohn-Sham orbitals are discussesd. A correlated generalization of the Sharp-Horton–Krieger-Li-Iafrate [Phys Lett. A 146, 256 (1990)] approximation of the exchange potential is introduced in the quasiparticle limit.

• Received 3 October 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.51.2005