  The adsorption energy of benzene on various metal substrates is predicted
using the random phase approximation (RPA) for the correlation energy.
Agreement with available experimental data is systematically better than 10%
for both coinage and reactive metals. The results are also compared with more
approximate methods, including vdW-density functional theory (DFT), as well as
dispersion corrected DFT functionals. Although dispersion corrected DFT can
yield accurate results, for instance, on coinage metals, the adsorption
energies are clearly overestimated on more reactive transition metals.
Furthermore, coverage dependent adsorption energies are well described by the
RPA. This shows that for the description of aromatic molecules on metal
surfaces further improvements in density functionals are necessary, or more
involved many body methods such as the RPA are required.
