Quantal Density Functional Theory of Degenerate States

The treatment of degenerate states within Kohn-Sham density functional theory is a problem of long-standing and current interest. We propose a solution to this mapping from the interacting degenerate system to that of the noninteracting fermion model whereby the equivalent density and energy are obtained via the unifying physical framework of quantal density functional theory. We describe the quantal theory of both ground and excited degenerate states, and for the cases of both pure state and ensemble $v$-representable densities. The quantal description further provides a rigorous physical interpretation of the corresponding Kohn-Sham energy functionals of the density, ensemble density, bidensity and ensemble bidensity, and of their respective functional derivatives. We conclude with examples of the mappings within the quantal theory.