Continuity equation for the many-electron spectral function

Starting from the recently proposed dynamical exchange-correlation field framework, the equation of motion of the diagonal part of the many-electron Green function is derived, from which the spectral function can be obtained. The resulting equation of motion takes the form of the continuity equation of charge and current densities in electrodynamics with a source. An unknown quantity in this equation is the divergence of the temporal current density, corresponding to the kinetic energy. A procedure à la Kohn-Sham scheme is then proposed, in which the difference between the kinetic potential of the interacting system and the noninteracting Kohn-Sham system is shifted into the exchange-correlation field. The task of finding a good approximation for the exchange-correlation field should be greatly simplified since only the diagonal part is needed. A formal solution to the continuity equation provides an explicit expression for calculating the spectral function, given an approximate exchange-correlation field.