Calendar of Events

Events Calendar

Approximating Many-Electron Wave Functions using Deep Neural Networks

Date and Time: Tuesday, December 20, 2022, 01:30pm -
Location: 330W and via Zoom
 

Speaker:  Matthew Foulkes

Abstract:  Exact wave functions of molecules and solid-state simulation cells containing more than a few electrons are out of reach because they are NP-hard to compute in general, but approximations can be found using polynomially scaling algorithms. A key challenge in many such approaches is the choice of an approximate parameterized wave function, which must trade accuracy for efficiency. Neural networks have shown impressive power as practical function approximators and promise as a way of representing wave functions for spin systems, but electronic wave functions have to obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. This talk describes a deep learning architecture, the Fermionic neural network, which is capable of approximating many-electron wavefunctions and greatly outperforms conventional approximations. Applications to a range of problems in molecular chemistry and solid-state physics will be discussed.

Host:  Kristjan Haule