An incremental coupled-cluster approach to metallic lithium

Coupled-cluster pair energies calculated for localized orbitals infinite lithium clusters are used for an estimate of the cohesive energy and the lattice constant of the bcc lithium crystal. It is shown that the results converge reasonably fast with cluster size and are of comparable quality with conventional density functional ones for the infinite solid. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.