Introducing constricted variational density functional theory in its relaxed self-consistent formulation (RSCF-CV-DFT) as an alternative to adiabatic time dependent density functional theory for studies of charge transfer transitions.

We have applied the relaxed and self-consistent extension of constricted variational density functional theory (RSCF-CV-DFT) for the calculation of the lowest charge transfer transitions in the molecular complex X-TCNE between X = benzene and TCNE = tetracyanoethylene. Use was made of functionals with a fixed fraction (α) of Hartree-Fock exchange ranging from α = 0 to α = 0.5 as well as functionals with a long range correction (LC) that introduces Hartree-Fock exchange for longer inter-electronic distances. A detailed comparison and analysis is given for each functional between the performance of RSCF-CV-DFT and adiabatic time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) within the Tamm-Dancoff approximation. It is shown that in this particular case, all functionals afford the same reasonable agreement with experiment for RSCF-CV-DFT whereas only the LC-functionals afford a fair agreement with experiment using TDDFT. We have in addition calculated the CT transition energy for X-TCNE with X = toluene, o-xylene, and naphthalene employing the same functionals as for X = benzene. It is shown that the calculated charge transfer excitation energies are in as good agreement with experiment as those obtained from highly optimized LC-functionals using adiabatic TDDFT. We finally discuss the relation between the optimization of length separation parameters and orbital relaxation in the RSCF-CV-DFT scheme.