Within the finite temperature LDA forces are defined as the derivative of the generalized free energy. This quantity can be evaluated easily. The functional depends on the wavefunctions , the partial occupancies , and the positions of the ions . In this section we will shortly discuss the variational properties of the free energy and we will explain why we calculate the forces as a derivative of the free energy. The formulas given are very symbolic and we do not take into account any constraints on the occupation numbers or the wavefunctions. We denote the whole set of wavefunctions as and the set of partial occupancies as .
The electronic groundstate is determined by the variational property of the
free energy i.e.
Previously we have mentioned that the only physical quantity is the energy for . It is in principle possible to evaluate the derivatives of E() with respect to the ionic coordinates but this is not easy and requires additional computer time.