Doctoral researcher (PhD candidate) in quantum Monte Carlo methods

at  Universit du Luxembourg

The University of Luxembourg is an international research university with a distinctly multilingual and interdisciplinary character.
The Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM) at the University of Luxembourg contributes multidisciplinary expertise in the fields of Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Computer Science, Life Sciences and Medicine.
Through its dual mission of teaching and research, the FSTM seeks to generate and disseminate knowledge and train new generations of responsible citizens in order to better understand, explain and advance society and environment we live in.

YOUR PROFILE

We are looking for passionate candidates with:

• Master degree (or equivalent degree) in Chemistry, Physics, Material Science or Computational Science
• Knowledge of QMC methods or quantum Chemistry methods, such as Hartree-Fock, Configuration Interaction, Coupled Cluster, Perturbation Theories, or density functional theory (DFT), applied to molecular or periodic systems. Alternatively, also experience in Classical Force-Fields and Molecular Dynamics will be considered positively
• Experience in programming with C and/or Fortran (knowledge of MPI and/or OpenMP protocols would be a plus)
• Experience in bash and/or Python scripting
• Good command of written and spoken English

The Theoretical Chemical Physics (TCP) group led by Prof. Alexandre Tkatchenko aims at the development of novel and efficient methodologies to address fundamental and challenging phenomena at the intersection of physics, chemistry, and biology.
This is achieved by combining first-principles quantum methods and coarse-grained statistical approaches, and through the development of novel mathematical and computational techniques.
Our group includes physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and computer scientists, and maintains collaborations with many leading researchers across the world.
At the TCP group, we are currently looking for a highly motivated Doctoral researcher (PhD candidate) in Physics to contribute to the quantum Chemistry research with a particular focus on the development of quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods for the study of van der Waals (vdW) interactions in molecular systems.
The successful candidate will be expected to conduct research under the guidance of Prof. Tkatchenko and to contribute to the department’s many activities, including seminars, teaching, outreach, and various other research-related events.

During the research activity, the candidate will contribute to the QMeCha QMC code development, and his project will follow three possible topics:

• Structural and dynamical properties of van der Waals systems
• Wavefunction development and electronic correlations
• Embedding approach to extend the accuracy of QMC to large systems with thousands of atoms

depending on the research interests and expertise of the candidate.