The density functional theory for superconductors developed in the preceding article is applied to the calculation of superconducting properties of several elemental metals. In particular, we present results for the transition temperature, for the gap at zero temperature, and for thermodynamic properties like the specific heat. We obtain an unprecedented agreement with experimental results. Superconductors both with strong and weak electron-phonon coupling are equally well described. This demonstrates that, as far as conventional superconductivity is concerned, the first-principles prediction of superconducting properties is feasible.

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A novel approach to the description of superconductors in thermal equilibrium is developed within a formally exact density-functional framework. The theory is formulated in terms of three "densities": the ordinary electron density, the superconducting order parameter, and the diagonal of the nuclear N -body density matrix. The electron density and the order parameter are determined by Kohn-Sham equations that resemble the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. The nuclear density matrix follows from a Schrödinger equation with an effective N -body interaction. These equations are coupled to each other via exchange-correlation potentials which are universal functionals of the three densities. Approximations of these exchange-correlation functionals are derived using the diagrammatic techniques of many-body perturbation theory. The bare Coulomb repulsion between the electrons and the electron-phonon interaction enter this perturbative treatment on the same footing. In this way, a truly ab-initio description is achieved which does not contain any empirical parameters.

We report first-principles calculations of the superconducting properties of CaC 6 , obtained within the density functional theory of superconductivity. We find a moderately anisotropic gap which is larger on the Fermi surface sheet with interlayer and Ca character compared with isotropic calculations. Our calculated anisotropy improves the agreement with specific heat experiments and is consistent with recent tunneling experiments. In contrast to MgB 2 , we do not find multigap superconductivity but, instead, a continuous spread of gap values.

Extreme pressure strongly affects the superconducting properties of "simple" elemental metals, such as Li, K, and Al. Pressure induces superconductivity in Li (as high as 17 K) while suppressing it in Al. We report first-principles investigations of the superconducting properties of dense Li, K, and Al based on a recently proposed, parameter-free, method. Our results show an unprecedented agreement with experiments, assess the predictive power of the method over a wide range of densities and electron-phonon couplings, and provide predictions for K, where no experiments exist so far. More importantly, our results help uncover the physics of the different behaviors of Li and Al in terms of phonon softening and Fermi surface nesting in Li.