Seminar: In silico exploration of light-driven phenomena in matter

One of the major challenges in our attempts to understand, and ultimately to control, properties of matter is light-driven phenomena. The strong coupling between electronic, vibrational and magnetic degrees of freedom present in materials and molecules, and the time-scales of energy transfer between these, makes a detailed analysis based on purely experimental data difficult. It is therefore appealing to attempt to describe important parts of these experiments in computer simulations, where parts of phase space can be monitored in detail. I will review recent developments of first-principles methods to address this challenge. The main approximations to the full, intractable, quantum mechanical description will be outlined. Further, examples of how these methods can be used to interpret experimental signals will be provided, as well as predictions of light-driven phenomena that motivates further experimental studies. A brief outlook of the (many) remaining challenges will be given.