CECAM Workshop:

Excited states and electronic spectra

Lyon, France, 20 - 22  july 2000
 
 
 
 


Scientific Background:

 


  The workshop is concerned with ab-initio calculations of excited electronic states, and related spectroscopic properties, in condensed matter applications as well as atomic and molecular physics (nanostructured materials).
In solid state physics, electronic excitations are normally studied using a Green's-function formalism, based on self-energy operators. In the 1960s the theory reached a relatively advanced stage for the homogeneous electron gas [1], but, due to computational limitations, one had to wait the mid-1980s for the theory starting to be systematically applied to realistic, inhomogeneous systems [e.g. 2,3].
Since then there has been considerable activity in exploring applications of the self-energy theory, notably at the level of the GW approximation, and computational advances [e.g. 4-7] have made more complex applications possible; see e.g. [8-10].

Major developments are now concerning three main directions: (i) more information than just the improvement of bandstructure should be inferred from GW calculations, like updated charge densities or total energies [11], or electron/hole lifetimes [12]; (ii) besides the one-electron addition and removal energies, which are often well described on the GW level, a realistic description of two-particle excitations is now starting to be feasible, but calculations are still very cumbersome [8,13-15]. (iii) For the absorption spectra of finite structures, calculations based on time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) in the adiabatic local density approximation (ALDA) have yielded promising results [16].

All those points are of great relevance to make connection with up-to-date characterizations by experimental spectroscopies: photoemission (single and two-photon, inverse and femtosecond-time resolved), photoabsorption, electron-energy-loss, X-ray absorption, scanning-tunneling-microscopy, near-field, etc..

Since work on all points (i)-(iii) demands for a considerable conceptual and numerical effort, it is important that a continuous contact to other scientific communities is established. In fact, similar approaches are used in different contexts, and similar problems may be solved with different methods. Past workshops of this serie have stimulated the discussion of condensed matter physicists  with theoretical chemists and nuclear physicists, and have brought together the Green's functions community with people using Time Dependent Density Functional approaches [17,18] (which work with effective potentials rather than with explicit self-energies (or their derivatives)). This link can be regarded as the natural counterpart to the relation with theoretical chemistry: the latter are, roughly speaking, designed for very high precision with corresponding numerical effort, whereas DFT like approaches promise improved efficiency with, at least at present, lower precision. On the other hand, the present knowledge on self-energy calculations and new variational expressions for the many-body total energy and response functions are very relevant for the development of new non-local exchange-correlation functionals in time and space (see for example [19-21]) that are of key importance for the practical implementation of TDDFT approaches.
 

References:

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{4}{H.N. Rojas, R.W. Godby, and R.J. Needs, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 74} , 1827 (1995);L. Steinbeck, A. Rubio, L. Reining, M. Torrent, I. D. White and R.W. Godby, to appear in Computer Physics Communications.}

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{9}{I.D. White, R.W. Godby, M.M. Rieger and R.J. Needs, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 80}, 4265 (1998).}

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{12} {I. Campillo, J. M. Pitarke, A. Rubio, E. Zarate and P.M. Echenique, Phys. Rev. Lett {\bf 83}, 2230 (1999).}

{13} {S. Albrecht, L. Reining, R. Del Sole, and G. Onida, Phys. Rev. Lett {\bf 80}, 4510 , 1998.}

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{16} {A. Rubio, J.A. Alonso, X. Blase, L.C. Balb\'as and S.G. Louie, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 77}, 247 (1996); K. Yabana and G. Bertsch, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 54}, 4484 (1996); I. Vasiliev, S. \"Og\"ut and J. Chelikowsky, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 82}, 1919 (1999)}

{17} {E. Runge and E.K.U. Gross, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 52}, 997 (1984); M. Petersilka, U.J. Grossmann and E.K.U. Gross, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 76}, 1212 (1996); Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 74}, 872 (1995).}

{18}{ G. Vignale and W. Kohn, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 77}, 2037 (1996); Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 74}, 3233 (1995).}

{19}{ J.F. Dobson, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 73}, 2244 (1994); K. Capelle and E.K.U. Gross, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 78}, 1872 (1997).}

{20}{R. van Leeuwen, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 76}, 3610 (1996); Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 82}, 3863 (1999).}

{21}{ X. Gonze and M. Scheffler, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 82}, 4416 (1999); S.J.A. van Gisbergen, et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 83}, 694 (1999).}
 
 



CECAM, Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon, 46 Allee d'Italie

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