Ground-state properties of trapped Bose-Fermi mixtures: role of exchange-correlation

Abstract

We introduce Density Functional Theory for inhomogeneous Bose-Fermi mixtures, derive the associated Kohn-Sham equations, and determine the exchange-correlation energy in local density approximation. We solve numerically the Kohn-Sham system and determine the boson and fermion density distributions and the ground-state energy of a trapped, dilute mixture beyond mean-field approximation. The importance of the corrections due to exchange--correlation is discussed by comparison with current experiments; in particular, we investigate the effect of of the repulsive potential energy contribution due to exchange--correlation on the stability of the mixture against collapse.