The theory of the electronic properties of condensed matter is a major challenge in many-particle quantum mechanics. The exact solution of the Schrödinger equation for more than a few interacting electrons is impossible. Nevertheless, powerful approximation techniques exist, based on underlying theoretical ideas that are themselves exact, including density-functional theory and many-body perturbation theory. To improve the approximations made in the implementation of these theories for ground-state, spectroscopic and time-dependent properties of many-electron systems, I will present results using our iDEA code [1], which allows the exact treatment of electron correlation and localisation for real-space one-dimensional systems of interacting electrons.

[1] http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~rwg3/idea.html