Ground-state wave functions and energies of solids

It is possible to calculate the ground-state wave function and energy of a periodic solid by applying quantum chemical methods. The accuracy achieved is comparable with that for small, molecules. The many-body problem of the correlated ground state is expressed in terms of cumulant scattering matric es. This provides a link to the method of increments which can also be deri ved from the Bethe-Goldstone equations. The theory is applied to calculate primarily the cohesive energy, but also other properties of group IV semico nductors, III-V compounds, and the ionic crystals MgO, CaO, and NiO. It is demonstrated that the scattering-matrix approach can be also applied to str ongly correlated electron systems. As a first step in that direction a diam ond lattice is considered when the bond lengths are stretched toward infini ty. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.