Teaching the Theory in Density Functional Theory
Location: CECAM-HQ-EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Organisers
Last year, at least 30,000 scientific papers reported the results of DFT
calculations. Many workshops and schools teach how to run a specific code.
The purpose of this school is to teach the theory behind DFT. Lectures will be
pedagogical and range from fundamentals to the latest approximations.
The school is primarily targeted at junior researchers (Ph.D. students and
postdocs) who are currently running DFT calculations and/or developing DFT or
are interested in learning more about DFT.
Internationally renowned experts in DFT (Mel Levy, John Perdew, Hardy Gross,
Weitao Yang, Kieron Burke, Leeor Kronik, Neepa Maitra, Adrienn Ruzsinszky, and
Adam Wasserman) will provide a thorough training in the fundamental theory
through lectures and pedagogical research talks that connect themes of the
lectures to the lecturers’ own cutting-edge research.
The fundamental topics in DFT that will be covered are:
1. Hohenberg-Kohn theorems
2. Thomas-Fermi theory
3. Kohn-Sham method
4. Local density approximation
5. Exact conditions
6. Density matrices and XC holes
7. Scaling and adiabatic connection
8. Generalized gradient approximations
9. Hybrid approximations
10. Introduction to TDDFT
11. Linear response theory
12. Derivative discontinuity, gaps, delocalization
13. Van-der-Waals interaction
14. Strong correlation
15. Magnetism
16. Optimized effective potential method
17. Many-body theory
Did you ever dream to learn about DFT directly from renowned experts in the field? Then this video collection from the CECAM school "Teaching the Theory in Density Functional Theory" (June 2017) is your chance. Researchers who contributed 40, 30 or 20 years ago to the development of DFT team up with a younger generation to bring you in a pedagogical way the story of DFT, from its conception (and before) to current research. Good to know: no slides were allowed during the first half of the school, it's all talking and whiteboards. This gives those lectures a pace that allows you to really follow the expert thinking. The lectures are frequently interrupted by questions from the audience, which often brings up new insights.
As a student, you can use this material for personal study or group study. As a teacher, you can embed the Youtube videos in your own courses about DFT (embed them in your own courses via this Youtube channel). More study and teaching hints are here. Community contributions for subtitles in English and any other language are very much wellcome (via Youtube).
Please report here if you spot a technical problem on this page, or if you have any other comment, suggestion or feedback.
pedagogical lectures (whiteboard teaching)
research talks (with slides)
References
Hardy Gross (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) - Organiser
United States
Kieron Burke (UC Irvine) - Organiser
Attila Cangi (Sandia National Laboratories) - Organiser