Condensed Matter Theory 

The Condensed Matter Theory (CMT) group is a research group which belongs to the Department of Physics of the University of Antwerp.

The CMT group performs theoretical research in the area of mesoscopic physics and nanophysics which is between the atomic scale and the macroscopic scale.

Mesoscopic physics and nanophysics

This field of research adresses the intermediate regime between the macroscopic world, which can be described by the laws of classical physics, and the microscopic world for which only quantum mechanics provides an adequate description.

The mesoscopic regime is the transition region between the quantum and classical world and the dual nature of the particles is manifested: they can 'reveal' themselves either as interfering quantum objects or as more classical particles depending on the specific conditions.

In the nano regime (a nanometer is a 10.000th of the diameter of a hair) the number of particles is small and the well known thermodynamic limit of statistical physics is no longer applicable and finite size effects might become dominant. In these few-body problems, the confinement of the system largely determines its properties. This allows to fabricate 'man-made devices' with specific optical, transport and magnetic properties.

New
  • New practical info especially helpful for students and visitors, includes a link to annotated map
  • New conference organized: DyProSo

Theoretical techniques
  • Variational quantum Monte Carlo
  • Molecular Dynamics simulations
  • Classical Monte Carlo
  • Density functional theory
  • Exact numerical diagonalization
  • Finite element and finite difference techniques
  • Variational techniques
  • Padé approximation

    • Computer Resources

    Each member of the group  gets assigned a state of the art personal computer and can also make use of  the linux cluster Seastar (188 cores; 500GB RAM) which at the moment has the following configuration:

    • Server: 2*AMD opteron dual core 64 bit 2.4GHz, 8GB RAM, 8*300GB + 2*70GB SCSI disks , 2*Gb Ethernet, 4 Gb fiber channel (2.5 TB storage)
    • External storage: 12*500 GB Sata-II disks, 2*4Gb fiber channel (6 TB storage)
    • 7 compute nodes: 2*Xeon 2.4GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 70GB IDE disks, Gb Ethernet (14 CPU-cores, 770 GB storage)
    • 5 compute nodes: 2*dual-core AMD opteron 280, 64 bit 2.4GHz CPU, 16GB RAM, 70GB Sata disks, Gb Ethernet (20 CPU-cores, 350 GB storage)
    • 8 compute nodes: 2*dual-core AMD opteron 2220 SE, 64 bit 2.8GHz CPU, 16GB RAM, 70GB Sata disks, Gb Ethernet  (32 CPU-cores, 560 GB storage)
    • 1 compute node: 2*dual-core AMD opteron 2220 SE, 64 bit 2.8GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, 70GB Sata disks, Gb Ethernet  (4 CPU-cores, 70 GB storage)
    • 7 blades: 4*quad-core AMD opteron 8378, 64 bit 2.4GHz CPU, 32GB RAM, 70GB Sata disks, Gb Ethernet (64 CPU-cores, 280 GB storage)
    • HP Procurve 24-port Gb Ethernet switch
    • D-link 24-port Gb Ethernet switch

     
    Inhoudsverantwoordelijke: kwinten.nelissen