Dear wien2k users, <br>
<br>
I am calculating the properties of several f-electron compounds. I
would like to ask the users' opinion about the volume optimization in an
f- or d-electron system: which way is better (or physically justified), with LDA/GGA or with
LDA+U/GGA+U? In my opinion, the LDA+U/GGA+U techniques were developed to correct band energies of localized states, so there is no fundamental physical reason to use LDA+U/GGA+U methods for volume optimization. However, we observe a change in the lattice parameters when we go from
LDA/GGA to LDA+U/GGA+U. Also, from a brief search of the literature we
found that, in many cases, people tune the Hubbard-U parameter to
reproduce the experimental lattice constants. <br>
I would appreciate further thoughts and insights into this issue.<br>
<br>
Thank you, <br>
Zs