Final report on psi-k funded Elk workshop

Organizers: J. K. Dewhurst, E. K. U. Gross, and S. Sharma

1.  SUMMARY

The Psi-k funded Elk-code  tutorial  took place at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics (MPI-Halle) in Halle, Germany,  from September 3 – 7, 2018. There were a total  of 14 speakers and tutors of the code and 45 students from 16 countries. We were oversubscribed and ,unfortunately, had to turn down several applicants (we received in total 61 requests for attending the Elk-tutorials).

The Elk LAPW  code (http://elk.sourceforge.net/) is an electronic structure code based on the state-of-the-art full-potential  linearized augmented plane-wave (LAPW)  method. It was designed from the start to be a user- and developer-friendly code, allowing PhD students and post-docs to both use the code for their  research as well as implement new ideas in the field of electronic structure.

The present Elk-tutorial  was fourth in the series of tutorials.  The previous tutorials were held in 2011, 2013 and 2015. The aims of the tutorials  have been introduction  to the ELK  code as well as the cutting  edge science and implementations in the field of electronic structure methods.

Continue reading Final report on psi-k funded Elk workshop

Report on the Psi-k/CECAM Research Conference “Ab initio Spin-Orbitronics”

September 25, 2017 – September 29, 2017
Hotel Promenade, Montesilvano, Pescara (Italy)

Organizers:
Silvia Picozzi (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche CNR-SPIN, Italy)
Stefan Blügel (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany)
Ingrid Mertig (Martin Luther University Halle, Germany)

The main purpose of this Psi-k/CECAM research conference (with about 110 participants) has been to highlight the very recent theoretical and computational developments related to the interplay of spin-orbit interaction with electronic structure, magnetism, transport as well as its link to strongly correlated materials and ultrafast currents in diverse materials. We have focused on discussing spin-orbit coupling (SOC) as a means of engendering fundamentally novel physical phenomena in exotic systems. The Conference therefore spanned several research dimensions, ranging from Materials (in the form of bulk compounds, surfaces and interfaces, thin films and heterostructures) to Functionalities (associated with topology, spin-momentum locking, valley degrees of freedom, skyrmions, coupling to electric currents by Berry phases, etc.) to method developments (in terms of dynamical processes in out-of-equilibrium quantum matter, Berry phase physics, etc). A brainstorm about concepts and ideas in a little understood phenomenon, such as orbital magnetization, was carried out under the guidance of Prof. Ivo Souza. While the main focus was on ab initio simulations, a few leading scientists in experiments were invited (Prof. Stuart Parkin, Prof. Claudia Felser, etc) and a strong interface to many-body physics treated on the basis of realistic model Hamiltonians was included.

Read the full report here.

Report on CECAM Workshop: “Emerging Technologies in Scientific Data Visualisation”.

Title: Emerging Technologies in Scientific Data Visualisation
Location: CECAM-IT-SISSA-SNS Node, in Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy)
Webpage with list of participants, schedule and abstracts of presentations: https://www.cecam.org/workshop-1586.html

Dates: April 4, 2018 to April 6, 2018
Organizers:

Stefano de Gironcoli (International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) and CNR-DEMOCRITOS IOM, Trieste, Italy)

Emine Kucukbenli (SISSA, Trieste, Italy)

Giordano Mancini (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy)

Monica Sanna (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy)

State of the art:

Visualisation allows us to tap into high-bandwidth cognitive hierarchies of our brains and allows us to process high densities of information at once. In the field of atomistic and molecular simulations, it is a key element to research: we use ball-and-stick figures to represent the simulation scenarios, graphs to recognize or communicate parametric relationships of equations. The “Big Data” trend gave rise to several projects with vast output of data, many data-driven approaches are being introduced. For instance, a new EU Center of Excellence, “NOMAD”, is established to collect, store and regularize data to build a materials encyclopedia. Continue reading Report on CECAM Workshop: “Emerging Technologies in Scientific Data Visualisation”.