Time-Dependent Local Density Approximation for Collective Excitations of Atomic Clusters

We discuss the calculation of collective excitations in atomic clusters using the time-dependent local density approximation. In principle there are many formulations of the TDLDA, but we have found that a particularly efficient method for large clusters is to use a coordinate space mesh and the algorithms for the operators and the evolution equations that had been developed for the nuclear time-dependent Hartree-Fock theory. The TDLDA works remarkably well to describe the strong excitations in alkali metal clusters and in carbon clusters. We show as an example the benzene molecule, which has two strong features in its spectrum. The systematics of the linear carbon chains is well reproduced, and may be understood in rather simple terms.