title: Physical signatures of discontinuities of the time-dependent exchange-correlation potential.
abstract: The exact exchange-correlation (XC) potential in time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) is known to develop steps and discontinuities upon change of the particle number in spatially confined regions or isolated subsystems. We demonstrate that the self-interaction corrected adiabatic local-density approximation for the XC potential has this property, using the example of electron loss of a model quantum well system. We then study the influence of the XC potential discontinuity in a real-time simulation of a dissociation process of an asymmetric double quantum well system, and show that it dramatically affects the population of the resulting isolated single quantum wells. This indicates the importance of a proper account of the discontinuities in TDDFT descriptions of ionization, dissociation or charge transfer processes.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física e Informática, Instituto de Física de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 369, São Carlos, São Paulo, 13560-970, Brazil.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vieira
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Capelle
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Ullrich