New approach to energy-band calculations with results for lithium metal

A new method, the GI method, for electronic wave functions has been applied to the study of energy bands in bcc lithium metal. The GI method leads to energy bands for lithium comparable with the Hartree-Fock bands except that small gaps occur within the first Hartree-Fock Brillouin zone. This leads to a compelling interpretation of several anomalous experimental properties of alkali metals (such as the very low optical absorption threshold and the lack of saturation of the transverse magnetoresistance).