Fractional electron number, temperature, and perturbations in chemical reactions

We provide a perspective on the role of non-integer electron number in the density functional theory approach to chemical reactivity (conceptual DFT), emphasizing that it is important to not only treat reagents as open systems, but also as non-isolated systems, in contact with their surroundings. The special case of well-separated reagents is treated in some detail, as is the case where reagents interact strongly. The resulting expressions for …