Scientific report on the conference “Computer Simulations of Condensed Phase Systems – From Correlated Electrons to Novel Materials”
Rome, Italy
June 4th – June 6th 2015
View the full report here.
The workshop “Computer simulations for condensed phase systems: from correlated electrons to novel materials” took place in Rome, at the headquarters of the CNR (Italian National Research Council) , on the 4th and 5th of May 2015. It was meant as a celebration of Giovanni Bachelet’s 60th birthday, organized by several of his former students who are currently active in the field of electronic structure calculations.
Giovanni Bachelet has been one of the pioneers in the field. After graduating with F. Bassani, he moved to the Bell Labs (USA), where he made key contributions to pseudopotentials theory and practice; he was then active in several European institutions (MPI Stuttgart, Scuola Normale di Pisa, CNR Trento), before being appointed a professorship in condensed matter theory at the University la Sapienza, Rome, where he is still today. Beside his activity on a wide range of topics over the years (especially on methodological developments such as pseudopotentials, beyond-local density functionals, and Quantum Monte Carlo), Giovanni has been an important actor in the electronic structure community also through his mentoring, organizational and teaching activity; many of his former students and collaborators are now established independent researchers at several European institutions.
The scope of this workshop was to bring together many colleagues and collaborators of Giovanni from different stages of his career at his own research institution. This automatically provides for a remarkable roster of speakers, who are all leading experts in the different areas of electronic structure theory which have taken the stage over the years (Density Functional Theory, electronic structure of real materials, correlated electrons, molecular dynamics, quantum Monte Carlo, theoretical spectroscopy). The workshop mapped out the progress of ab initio electronic structure theory over the last 30+ years through the very voices of many of its leading figures, touching upon key developments, from electron-electron interaction via functionals or Monte Carlo through to cutting edge applications to nanoscience.
The format of the workshop has been carefully designed to encourage exchange and discussion between participants at all levels. The scientific program comprised two scientific sessions with 20 invited speakers, a “round-table” moderated by Giovanni Bachelet, where some of his former students briefly presented their most recent results and a poster session. The event was advertised using several channels and we had a participation of more than 70 people among researchers and students.