DFT to calculate solar system

[Des]

Using DFT and the Kohn-Sham method for planetary orbits seems strange to me, as quantum effects are not relevant at this scale. Planetary orbits are described with classical mechanics, where the position and speeds of a planet is exactly known; there is not such a thing as a “planet density” function, that would be a delta function if we consider the planets to be point objects.

A similar approach would be to find a functional that takes the planetary orbits as an input, and outputs the total energy of the system. If that functional can be minimized, we can find the lowest energy state of the many body problem. But then again, in classical mechanics the lowest energy state of a planetary system would be one where all the planets have fallen into the sun, with 0 kinetic energy and minimal potential energy.

I think you would have to find a way to define a density for a planetary orbit, for example like the average mass in a position during the planets orbit. Then, DFT and the Kohn-Sham method could become applicable. The Kohn-Sham method would then give us equations for “pseudo-planets”.

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