Cluster Physics

The researcher activities of the Cluster Physics group are centered around the study of strongly out-of-equilibrium dynamics of aggregates and nano-objects. The reference method is Density Functional Theory (DFT) in its “Time-Dependent” version (TDDFT). TDDFT, in its standard form, is essentially an effective mean-field theory that allows the study of numerous dynamic situations but does not adequately incorporate correlations, particularly dynamic correlations, which are essential for understanding strongly out-of-equilibrium systems. This is a challenging topic that has been studied for decades in various fields of physics and chemistry. Progress is steady but slow. Over the last 15 years, we have also developed another line of fundamental research which focuses on the description of photoemission spectra using Many-Body Perturbation Theory (MBPT) based on Green’s functions. The approximations used in MBPT exhibit certain shortcomings in cases of strong electron correlations. Describing this regime remains a major challenge in condensed matter physics.

The group’s work focuses notably on extending TDDFT using methods inspired by kinetic theories (including stochastic extensions), specifically in terms of density matrices, and on developing new approximations for correlations in MBPT. This research has led to the open-source release of a code for finite systems, based on TDDFT but incorporating dynamic correlations, as well as the implementation of our MBPT developments in several open-source codes.

Team members

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