LTC Seminar LTClogoMedKat3 Title: Computing multi-particle quantum dynamics using variational principles Speaker: Simen Kvaal, University of Oslo Time: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 14:15 Place: 1520-616 Abstract: The successful computation of multi-particle quantum dynamics is at the frontier of today's research in many subfields of physics, such as atomic and chemical physics or nanotechnology. Unfortunately, the cost of the computational problem grows exponentially with the number of particles N, the so-called "curse of dimensionality". Efficient schemes are therefore somewhat hard to obtain. In this talk, I will outline how increasingly accurate and computationally feasible approximations are generated using the so-called time-dependent variational principle, with the multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree method (MCTDH) as the current state of the art for ab initio computations. Finally, I will outline a novel approximation based on coupled-cluster theory. The method scales only polynomially with N, and therefore represents a possible rival to MCTDH. There will be coffee, tea and cake from 14:00. Lars Bojer Madsen