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PV: Plenarvorträge
PV IV
PV IV: Plenary Talk
Wednesday, March 28, 2001, 08:30–09:15, S 2
Electronic Structure of Matter: Wave Functions and Density Functionals — •Walter Kohn — Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
In this lecture I shall try to elucidate the density functional theory (DFT) of electronic structure in the light of more traditional wavefunction (WF)-based theories. In particular I shall suggest that, in general, for systems consisting of very many (≥ O(103)) atoms not only do WF methods encounter great practical difficulties but become in principle questionable. For such systems, including large classes of organic, soft-matter and disordered systems, DFT offers excellent opportunities for continuing advances.