Density functional theory (DFT) has made an unmatched contributMore information can be found here: https://th.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/meetings/DPGSym2018/ion by providing first-principles atomistic insights to chemistry, condensed matter physics, materials science, and many other fields. However, most commonly used density functional approximations (DFAs) suffer from some well-known failures, including the incapability to correctly describe charge-transfer processes, weak dispersion interactions, and strongly interacting scenarios. Recent effort attempting to cover such intricate many-body effects in DFT has initiated many new concepts at varying theoretical levels, and has led to a bunch of new concepts and insights, as well as new DFAs. Some of these developments can be viewed as a merger of wavefunction theories of quantum chemistry and DFT.

The symposium will cover the recent progress in DFT by inviting well-known international experts as well as young researchers who have already significantly contributed to the field. We expect this symposium to attract a diverse audience: those involved in method developments, practical DFT practitioners, as well as theoreticians in wave-function theory, quantum Monte Carlo, GW, and other fields. A list of proposed topics for the invited speakers can be found in Section 1.3.

The symposium will be part of the DPG spring meeting 2017 in Dresden. With more than 7,000 expected participants the DPG spring meeting is the largest European physics conference (the second largest physics conference worldwide) covering all aspects of condensed matter and chemical physics, materials science, surface science, as well as polymer and biophysics, and more. For a few years now the conference language has been English.

This is an official symposium at the DPG spring meeting, which is hosted by the surface science division, but topics are not restricted to surface science. Everybody in the wider field of computational materials and electronic structure theory will be invited to attend and to submit an abstract.