The method of increments - A wavefunction-based ab-initio correlation method for solids

The method of increments is a wavefunction-based ab initio correlation method for solids, which explicitly calculates the many-body wavefunction of the system. After a Hartree-Fock treatment of the infinite system the correlation energy of the solid is expanded in terms of localised orbitals or of a group of localised orbitals. The method of increments has been applied to a great variety of materials with a band gap, but in this paper the extension to metals is described. The application to solid mercury is presented, where we achieve very good agreement of the calculated ground-state properties with the experimental data.