Autumn School on Correlated Electrons: Understanding Correlated Materials with DMFT

Dynamical Mean-Field Theory (DMFT) has established itself as the method of choice for dealing with emergent phases in strongly correlated materials. In fact, its combination with density-functional theory via the construction of materials-specific models has opened the path to the description of correlation effects beyond the level of generic models.

The goal of this year’s school is to provide advanced graduate or PhD students and postdocs in the field of electronic structure of materials with an overview of the method and its application to materials, with a view towards the future of many-body simulations.

The program will start with fundamental models and concepts, introducing the Hubbard model and its physics, density-functional theory and the principles of DMFT. More advanced lectures will introduce the DFT+DMFT approach and its extensions. A core aspect of the technique are quantum-impurity solvers. For the latter, lectures will cover quantum Monte Carlo methods, exact diagonalization and DMRG, currently the most powerful and flexible solvers.

Additional lectures will present explorative approaches, such as variational methods suitable for quantum computers. Lectures will then show how the approach can be used to unravel the mechanism of paradigmatic emergent phenomena in materials: non-conventional superconductivity, orbital ordering, Mott phases, disorder, Hund’s metal behavior, and pseudogap phases. The topics will be treated with a focus on explaining key experiments in a realistic setting and with an outlook on materials design.