Due to the long-range screening behavior of electrons in metals, interactions between excited electrons and their corresponding holes are weak and are generally ignored. In this paper, we attempt to include this electron-hole interaction into the calculation by randomly choosing a finite number of electron-hole states to represent the excitations and calculating the response of these chosen electrons to the excited electron. In doing so, the Coulomb interactions are scaled to compensate for the finite sample chosen. Calculations were done for lithium, sodium, potassium, calcium, and aluminum.

• Received 19 December 1989

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.41.8037