This is the third in a series of International Workshops on Electron Correlations and Material Properties. The aim of this series of workshops is to provide a periodic (triennial) in-depth assessment of advances in the study and understanding of the effects that electron–electron interactions in solids have on the measurable properties of materials. The workshop is structured in a way that provides essentially equal exposure to experimental work, to phenomenology, and to ab initio theory. Since correlation effects are pervasive, the workshop aims to concentrate on the identification of promising methodology, experimental and theoretical, addressing the most critical frontier issues of electron correlations on the properties of materials. This series of workshops is distinguished from other topical meetings and conferences in that it strongly promotes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of electron correlations, involving the fields of quantum chemistry, physics, and materials science.
The first workshop was held June 28–July 3, 1998 and the second workshop took place June 23–29, 2001. Proceedings for both of the workshops have been published by Kluwer/Plenum. The third workshop was held July 4–July 9, 2004 and this volume contains the proceedings of that scientific meeting. Through the publications of proceedings, the workshop attempts to disseminate the information gathered during the discussions held at the Workshop to the wider scientific community, and to establish a record of advances in the field.
Electron correlations are responsible for a large number of exciting physical phenomena, including the fractional quantum Hall effect, ferromagnetism, the occurrence of ‘heavy fermion’ behaviour and the extremely high critical temperatures observed in some oxide superconductors. Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in studies of correlation effects in nanosystems. Experimental results attesting to correlation effects have emerged in the case of magnetic quantum corrals grown atom-by-atom on non-magnetic metallic surfaces. On the theoretical front, the dynamical mean field theory and the dynamical cluster approximation are being applied to realistic systems that have traditionally been outside the reach of electronic structure calculations. The time-dependent DFT has allowed the prediction of the spectral response of nanoclusters. Finally, the interplay of electron–phonon and electron–electron interactions is an important and unresolved problem in interacting many-particle systems.
The editors wish to express their gratitude to the following organizations who helped us immeasurably (administratively and/or financially) in setting up the workshop. Special thanks are due to California State University Northridge for handling the financial aspects of the workshop. Without the financial aid from the US Army Research Office and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory the meeting would not have materialized – our sincere thanks to them. Finally, we acknowledge the patience and guidance of Peter Riseborough and Philosophical Magazine in the preparation of this volume.
A. Gonis
N. Kioussis
M. Ciftan
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
University of California
January 2006