Semester: Fall
Offered: 2019
This is a completely revamped advanced computational physics course. This course will be split into two segments: first half will be computational physics of solids and computational quantum chemistry, and the second half will focus on computational physics of fields including light-matter interactions and transport. Our mission is simple: how do we compute properties of quantum materials and their response to light, temperature and external perturbations? We will note that properties of complex systems frequently involve going beyond conventional DFT approaches. In these cases, it is important to go from formalism and approximations to exactly how these are implemented and to recognize where beyond leading-order terms become essential to capture the physics. Whether you are an experimentalist working on low dimensional systems and topological matter or a theorist looking to expand your toolkit, this class is for you!
Topics include GW and Bethe-Salpeter Equation methods, DMFT, linear and nonlinear optical property predictions in low dimensional materials, properties of quantum defects in solids, computing scattering and response of topological materials like Dirac and Weyl semimetals among others.