Communication: Rationale for a new class of double-hybrid approximations in density-functional theory

We provide a rationale for a new class of double-hybrid approximations introduced by Brémond and Adamo [J. Chem. Phys. 135, 024106 (2011)]10.1063/1.3604569 which combine an exchange-correlation density functional with Hartree-Fock exchange weighted by λ and second-order Møller-Plesset (MP2) correlation weighted by λ3. We show that this double-hybrid model can be understood in the context of the density-scaled double-hybrid model proposed by Sharkas et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 134, 064113 (2011)]10.1063/1.3544215, as approximating the density-scaled correlation functional Ec[n1/λ] by a linear function of λ, interpolating between MP2 at λ = 0 and a density-functional approximation at λ = 1. Numerical results obtained with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof density functional confirms the relevance of this double-hybrid model.