  The debate about whether the insulating phases of vanadium dioxide (VO2) can
be described by band theory or must be described by a theory of strong electron
correlations remains unresolved even after decades of research. Energy-band
calculations using hybrid exchange functionals or including self-energy
corrections account for the insulating or metallic nature of different phases,
but have not yet successfully accounted for the observed magnetic orderings.
Strongly-correlated theories have had limited quantitative success. Here we
report that, by using hard pseudopotentials and an optimized hybrid exchange
functional, the energy gaps and magnetic orderings of both monoclinic VO2
phases and the metallic nature of the high-temperature rutile phase are
consistent with available experimental data, obviating an explicit role for
strong correlations. We also report a potential candidate for the newly-found
metallic monoclinic phase and present a detailed magnetic structure of the M2
monoclinic phase.
