  We use the exact strong-interaction limit of the Hohenberg-Kohn energy
density functional to construct an approximation for the exchange-correlation
term of the Kohn-Sham approach. The resulting exchange-correlation potential is
able to capture the features of the strongly-correlated regime without breaking
the spin or any other symmetry. In particular, it shows "bumps" (or barriers)
that give rise to charge localization at low densities and that are a
well-known key feature of the exact Kohn-Sham potential for strongly-correlated
systems. Here we illustrate this approach for the study of both weakly and
strongly correlated model quantum wires, comparing our results with those
obtained with the configuration interaction method and with the usual Kohn-Sham
local density approximation.
