CMCSN Research Highlight – Summer 2004 Pseudopotential Algorithms for Real Space Energy Calculations (PARSEC) Excited State Electronic Structure and Response Functions CRT

PARSEC is a code developed at the University of Minnesota. The code solves the electronic structure problem for confined systems such as atomic clusters, molecules and quantum dots. The code makes three physical approximations: (1) The Born-Oppenheimer approximation to separate the electronic and nuclear degrees of freedom. (2) The pseudopotential approximation to separate the chemically active electronic states (valence electrons) from the chemically inert sates (core electrons). (3) The local density approximation (LDA) or the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) both of which map the many electron problem to a one-electron problem, i.e., we solve the Kohn-Sham equation