Neepa T. Maitra

     Associate Professor
     Department of Physics and Astronomy
     Hunter College of the City University of New York
     695 Park Avenue
     New York, NY 10065.

     Office: 1214E HN
     Telephone: 212-650-3518
     Fax: 212-772-5390
     Email: nmaitra@hunter.cuny.edu


Course material: Physics 101

Research interests: in theoretical chemical physics, largely in density functional theory, also in semiclassical methods and quantum chaos. Most recently, the emphasis has been on time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT), a method to describe electronic excitations and dynamics in atomic, molecular, chemical systems and solids.
Fundamental development: investigating properties of the exact functionals in order to guide the development of accurate approximations eg. memory-dependence, from non-adiabatic effects in the linear response regime, to how memory affects species in intense fields. This has a wide range of implications and applications: electronic excitation energies and spectra, double excitations, highly excited Rydberg states, quantum control in intense fields. A recent emphasis has been on time-dependent current-density functional theory (TDCDFT) which is a neat way to go beyond the adiabatic approximation and include spatial non-local dependence.

We’re grateful to our funders: NSF CAREER, Cottrell Scholar of Research Corporation, ACS PRF, Hunter College Gender Equity Program, Research Corporation of CUNY

          Most of my publications are available here.

My education:
     B.Sc.(Hons)   University of Otago, New Zealand    (1993). (Undergrad advisor Rob Ballagh)
     Ph.D.   Harvard University, U.S.A.    (1998).   Thesis directed by Rick Heller.
     Postdoc'ed in Bill Miller's chemical physics group at Berkeley, and in Kieron Burke's density functional theory group at Rutgers.

 

Group members are here

Some useful links:

Meetings/Conferences of interest: American Physical Society March Meeting Tutorial 1 on Basics of Density Functional Theory, March 9 2008, New Orleans; APS March Meeting Session D1 on Fundamental Developments in Density Functional Theory, March 10 2008, New Orleans; ITAMP Workshop in Theoretical Challenges in Attosecond Laser Science, ITAMP-Center for Astrophysics at Harvard, Cambridge, May 12-26, 2008; 3rd International Workshop and School on Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory, Benasque, Spain Aug 31-Sep 15, 2008

Department Seminars: Hunter Physics Department Colloquiua

Often-used journals: Physical Review Letters, Journal of Chemical Physics, Physical Review A, Physical Review B, Chemical Physics Letters, ArXiv pre-print server
Web search: Google
Train schedules: NJ Transit NY-Trenton , Amtrak
NYC Subway: Map
News: N.Y.Times, BBC, NZ Herald 

Weather: N.Y.C.

Some other favourite links:
Pictures of my littlest colleagues, and more with beloved Dida. 
Interested in math? Chris Woodward's home page
A beautiful country New Zealand (where I grew up!)