John Perdew Festschrift

John Perdew is a renowned theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to the field of materials and electronic structure theory, in particular density functional theory (DFT), which is used to describe the electronic structure of molecules and solids. He played a key role in developing DFT to a level of accuracy that made it suitable for calculations in quantum chemistry and materials science.

Perdew's contributions to DFT are numerous and wide-ranging. He developed the exact adiabatic connection formula for the exchange-correlation energy. He pioneered the understanding of the derivative discontinuity and its contribution to the fundamental gap, and introduced exact constraints on the functionals, scaling, and self-interaction correction. Perdew developed the nonempirical generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and the nonempirical meta-GGA, which are widely used.

To honor Perdew on his 80th birthday, a special issue will be published featuring contributions from leading scientists in the development and applications of DFT. This issue will showcase the significant impact that Perdew has had on the field of chemical physics and highlight the ongoing advances in DFT research.

Guest Editors: Jianwei Sun and Kieron Burke with JCP Editor Weitao Yang