When dealing with electronic correlations in solids, one finds that they often resemble those in corresponding molecules or clusters. Hence one would expect quantum chemistry and solid-state theory to be two areas of research with many links and cross fertilization. Regrettably this is not the case. The two fields have diverged to such an extent that it is frequently difficult to find even a common language, something we hope will change in the future. In particular it has become clear that the various methods applied in chemistry and in solid-state theory are simply different approximations to the same set of cumulant equations.Peter Fulde, Correlated electrons in quantum matter (World Scientific, 2012), pages 3-4.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Fulde on the chemistry-physics divide
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This is not exactly the same thing as you quoted from Fulde. But I would like to point out that, in my very limited knowledge of computational quantum many-body physics, it appears to me that some interesting progress has been made in this area thanks to fruitful discourse with quantum chemistry. Specifically, I am referring to the solution of the N-representability problem (David Mazziotti, 2012) and the recent developement in variational methods (Garnet Chan, 2011 and onwards).
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