Thesis presented December 15, 2016

Abstract:
The linear response on the time-dependent density functional theory is studied in the wavelets formalism used in the BigDFT code, that allows the representations of electronic wave-functions on a simulation grid in real space. The goal of this study is to determine a reference excitation spectrum for a given system and exchange-correlation potential.
It appears that only one part of the spectrum can be easily brought to convergence with respect to the input parameters of BigDFT, which are the simulation grid extension and the number of unoccupied continuum orbitals considered in the spectrum calculation. The energy of the last unoccupied orbital used actually proves to be more important as a parameter than this number of unoccupied orbitals. This is justified by the study of the completeness of the basis sets made of the ground state orbitals of the system. This gives another point of view regarding spectrum obtained by using the Gausian basis sets formalism, as the one implemented in the code NWChem.As to the convergence of the spectrum at higher energy, concerning transitions between occupied orbitals and unoccupied orbitals of the continuum, the hope for a convergence faces the problem of the continuum collapse. One therefore has to think of another way of retrieving the data contained in this continuum.
The resonant states formalism, whose foundations were laid in the first half of the 20^th century, is very encouraging in this regard. A preliminary study in the case of the one-dimension square well potential is therefore presented. The first step consisted in the determination of these resonant states, whose energies and wavefunctions are complex valued in general. Their normalization was also clearly defined. It is then shown, under certain conditions, that the basis set formed by the eigenstates of this potential, including the continuum states, can be efficiently replaced by a discrete and complete basis set made of resonant states. Numerical applications also show that these states can also be advantageously used to define the Green's function or even compute the time propagation of a wavepacket.

Keywords:
Resonant states, Excited states, Many-Body perturbation theory

On-line thesis.