Ali Alavi
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Ali Alavi
Ali Alavi FRS (born May 10, 1966) is a professor of theoretical chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a Director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. Education Alavi was born in Tehran and was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences followed by a PhD in 1990 for research on the molecular dynamics of thin films and charge-transfer complexes. Research and career His research is focused on the electron correlation and the Schrödinger equations, combining quantum chemistry with Monte Carlo methods, which enable solutions to problems which are very difficult to solve using standard ''Ab initio'' quantum chemistry methods alone. His research has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Before working in Cambridge and Stuttgart, he held an academic post at Queen's University Belfast. Awards and honours Alavi was ...
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Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the President are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow of the ...
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Engineering And Physical Sciences Research Council
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to universities in the United Kingdom. EPSRC research areas include mathematics, physics, chemistry, artificial intelligence and computer science, but exclude particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astronomy (which fall under the remit of the Science and Technology Facilities Council). Since 2018 it has been part of UK Research and Innovation, which is funded through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. History EPSRC was created in 1994. At first part of the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), in 2018 it was one of nine organisations brought together to form UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Its head office is in Swindon, Wiltshire in the same building (Polaris House) that houses the AHRC, BBSRC ...
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Numerical Sign Problem
In applied mathematics, the numerical sign problem is the problem of numerically evaluating the integral of a highly oscillatory function of a large number of variables. Numerical methods fail because of the near-cancellation of the positive and negative contributions to the integral. Each has to be integrated to very high precision in order for their difference to be obtained with useful accuracy. The sign problem is one of the major unsolved problems in the physics of many-particle systems. It often arises in calculations of the properties of a quantum mechanical system with large number of strongly interacting fermions, or in field theories involving a non-zero density of strongly interacting fermions. Overview In physics the sign problem is typically (but not exclusively) encountered in calculations of the properties of a quantum mechanical system with large number of strongly interacting fermions, or in field theories involving a non-zero density of strongly interacting fermio ...
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Slater Determinant
In quantum mechanics, a Slater determinant is an expression that describes the wave function of a multi-fermionic system. It satisfies anti-symmetry requirements, and consequently the Pauli principle, by changing sign upon exchange of two electrons (or other fermions).Molecular Quantum Mechanics Parts I and II: An Introduction to QUANTUM CHEMISTRY (Volume 1), P. W. Atkins, Oxford University Press, 1977, . Only a small subset of all possible fermionic wave functions can be written as a single Slater determinant, but those form an important and useful subset because of their simplicity. The Slater determinant arises from the consideration of a wave function for a collection of electrons, each with a wave function known as the spin-orbital \chi(\mathbf), where \mathbf denotes the position and spin of a single electron. A Slater determinant containing two electrons with the same spin orbital would correspond to a wave function that is zero everywhere. The Slater determinant is named ...
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Electronic Correlation
Electronic correlation is the interaction between electrons in the electronic structure of a quantum system. The correlation energy is a measure of how much the movement of one electron is influenced by the presence of all other electrons. Atomic and molecular systems Within the Hartree–Fock method of quantum chemistry, the antisymmetric wave function is approximated by a single Slater determinant. Exact wave functions, however, cannot generally be expressed as single determinants. The single-determinant approximation does not take into account Coulomb correlation, leading to a total electronic energy different from the exact solution of the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation within the Born–Oppenheimer approximation. Therefore, the Hartree–Fock limit is always above this exact energy. The difference is called the ''correlation energy'', a term coined by Löwdin. The concept of the correlation energy was studied earlier by Wigner. A certain amount of electron c ...
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Ab Initio Quantum Chemistry Methods
''Ab initio'' quantum chemistry methods are computational chemistry methods based on quantum chemistry. The term was first used in quantum chemistry by Robert Parr and coworkers, including David Craig in a semiempirical study on the excited states of benzene. The background is described by Parr. ''Ab initio'' means "from first principles" or "from the beginning", implying that the only inputs into an ''ab initio'' calculation are physical constants. ''Ab initio'' quantum chemistry methods attempt to solve the electronic Schrödinger equation given the positions of the nuclei and the number of electrons in order to yield useful information such as electron densities, energies and other properties of the system. The ability to run these calculations has enabled theoretical chemists to solve a range of problems and their importance is highlighted by the awarding of the Nobel prize to John Pople and Walter Kohn. Accuracy and scaling ''Ab initio'' electronic structure method ...
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Ab Initio
''Ab initio'' ( ) is a Latin term meaning "from the beginning" and is derived from the Latin ''ab'' ("from") + ''initio'', ablative singular of ''initium'' ("beginning"). Etymology Circa 1600, from Latin, literally "from the beginning", from ablative case of ''initium'' "entrance", "beginning", related to verb ''inire'' "to go into", "enter upon", "begin". Uses ''Ab initio'' (abbreviation: ''ab init.'') is used in several contexts, including the following: Law In law, ''ab initio'' refers to something being the case from the start or from the instant of the act rather than from when the court declared it so. For instance, the term "void ''ab initio''" means "to be treated as invalid from the outset." E.g., in many jurisdictions, if a person signs a contract under duress, that contract is treated as being "void ''ab initio''". Typically, documents or acts which are void ''ab initio'' cannot be fixed and if a jurisdiction, a document, or an act is so declared at law to be void ...
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Monte Carlo Method
Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be deterministic in principle. They are often used in physical and mathematical problems and are most useful when it is difficult or impossible to use other approaches. Monte Carlo methods are mainly used in three problem classes: optimization, numerical integration, and generating draws from a probability distribution. In physics-related problems, Monte Carlo methods are useful for simulating systems with many coupled degrees of freedom, such as fluids, disordered materials, strongly coupled solids, and cellular structures (see cellular Potts model, interacting particle systems, McKean–Vlasov processes, kinetic models of gases). Other examples include modeling phenomena with significant uncertainty in inputs such as the calculation of ris ...
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Quantum Chemistry
Quantum chemistry, also called molecular quantum mechanics, is a branch of physical chemistry focused on the application of quantum mechanics to chemical systems, particularly towards the quantum-mechanical calculation of electronic contributions to physical and chemical properties of Molecule, molecules, Material, materials, and solutions at the atomic level. These calculations include systematically applied approximations intended to make calculations computationally feasible while still capturing as much information about important contributions to the computed Wave function, wave functions as well as to observable properties such as structures, spectra, and thermodynamic properties. Quantum chemistry is also concerned with the computation of quantum effects on molecular dynamics and chemical kinetics. Chemists rely heavily on spectroscopy through which information regarding the Quantization (physics), quantization of energy on a molecular scale can be obtained. Common metho ...
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Schrödinger Equation
The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system. It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of the subject. The equation is named after Erwin Schrödinger, who postulated the equation in 1925, and published it in 1926, forming the basis for the work that resulted in his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933. Conceptually, the Schrödinger equation is the quantum counterpart of Newton's second law in classical mechanics. Given a set of known initial conditions, Newton's second law makes a mathematical prediction as to what path a given physical system will take over time. The Schrödinger equation gives the evolution over time of a wave function, the quantum-mechanical characterization of an isolated physical system. The equation can be derived from the fact that the time-evolution operator must be unitary, and must therefore be generated by t ...
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Electron Correlation
Electronic correlation is the interaction between electrons in the electronic structure of a quantum system. The correlation energy is a measure of how much the movement of one electron is influenced by the presence of all other electrons. Atomic and molecular systems Within the Hartree–Fock method of quantum chemistry, the antisymmetric wave function is approximated by a single Slater determinant. Exact wave functions, however, cannot generally be expressed as single determinants. The single-determinant approximation does not take into account Coulomb correlation, leading to a total electronic energy different from the exact solution of the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation within the Born–Oppenheimer approximation. Therefore, the Hartree–Fock limit is always above this exact energy. The difference is called the ''correlation energy'', a term coined by Löwdin. The concept of the correlation energy was studied earlier by Wigner. A certain amount of electron cor ...
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