Dynamics of correlated many-body systems : propagating reduced two-particle density matrices without wave functions

Abstract

The theoretical description of correlated quantum many-body systems is one of the major challenges in current physics. Quantum correlations occur at practically all levels of complexity: from multi-photon ionization of atoms to high temperature superconductivity in solids. In general, the amount of information stored in the wavefunction makes it inaccessible to analytical or even numerical calculations. However, many dynamical ob-servables including the energy are completely de ned by the reduced two-particle density matrix. Recently a method has been developed to calculate the ground state energy of complex molecules based on the two-particle density matrix without knowledge of the full wavefunction. In this thesis a time-dependent version of this theory is developed. As a testing ground we use the lithium hydrate molecule in high intense laser elds. The accuracy of the newly developed theory is benchmarked against the multicon gurational time-dependent Hartree-Fock method.