Dynamic properties of the warm dense electron gas: an ab initio path integral Monte Carlo approach

Abstract

There is growing interest in warm dense matter (WDM) -- an exotic state on the border between condensed matter and plasmas. Due to the simultaneous importance of quantum and correlation effects WDM is complicated to treat theoretically. A key role has been played by \textit{ab initio} path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) simulations, and recently extensive results for thermodynamic quantities have been obtained. The first extension of PIMC simulations to the dynamic structure factor of the uniform electron gas were reported by Dornheim \textit{et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{121}, 255001 (2018)]. This was based on an accurate reconstruction of the dynamic local field correction. Here we extend this concept to other dynamical quantities of the warm dense electron gas including the dynamic susceptibility, the dielectric function and the conductivity.