Earlier this month, on 3rd of May, I was invited for a day to the Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie Théoriques of the Université de Lorraine in Metz. Unlike my earlier stay in Metz stay, during the MES conference, last August, I did not manage to enjoy this beautiful city much. Instead I passed my day with science at the lab and presented at their seminar in a nicely informal setting: Around a communal table, eating brioche and drinking coffee.

I have known my host, Ugo Ancarani, already since the MES. His research mostly revolves around the modelling of collisions, more precisely the interaction of light and matter leading to the ejection of one or more electrons. Similar to my research in molecular problems he employs a Sturmian-based approach to solve the problem. It was quite interesting to discuss similarities and differences between the physics of bound states and of collision problems, a theoretical setting I have not yet spend a lot of time thinking about.

In general I was quite surprised by the large number of research directions, which are dealt with in this lab. The range covers for example quantum dynamics, collision theory, biochemistry, solvation and mixed phase problems. I did not manage to chat with everyone, unfortunately, but I think I managed to catch at least some insight into the research in Metz.

Originating from the relation with Ugo's work I ended up presenting on our recent Coulomb-Sturmian convergence results at HF level with some outlook into future directions. Overall I really enjoyed the atmosphere at the seminar and the lab and I already look forward to anther time when I might return to Metz. As usual my slides are attached below.

Link
Coulomb Sturmian basis functions in electronic structure theory (Slides seminar talk)