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Centre for Research in Molecular Modeling

Centre de recherche en modélisation moléculaire

Centre for Research in Molecular Modeling

Centre de recherche en modélisation moléculaire

Conferences & lectures

Wavefunctions for strong correlation drawn from exactly solvable models - Paul Andrew Johnson (Université Laval)


Date & time
Friday, April 6, 2018
2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Cost

This event is free

Where

Hingston Hall, wing HC
7141 Sherbrooke W.
Room 155

Wheel chair accessible

No

ABSTRACT

The established methods of quantum chemistry are built upon the orbital picture: electrons interact only with the average field produced by the other electrons. The wavefunction is a Slater determinant of the occupied orbitals. Such an approach is expedient when it is possible to unambiguously label each orbital as occupied or unoccupied. These types of systems are weakly-correlated and are generally well treated by existing methods. On the other hand, when it is difficult to label orbitals as occupied or unoccupied, the wavefunction is not a single Slater determinant, and further, the number of important determinants grows exponentially with the system size. These types of systems are strongly-correlated. Our goal is to develop accurate and affordable techniques for strongly-correlated systems. We employ the eigenvectors of exactly solvable models as a starting point to expand the physical wavefunction. We will outline our approach with a simple model built upon pairs of electrons.

BIOGRAPHY

Paul Johnson was a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar under the supervision of Paul Ayers at McMaster, and Dimitri Van Neck and Patrick Bultinck in Ghent. He was a postdoc with Gustavo Scuseria before starting as an assistant professor at Université Laval.

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