Cederbaum is particularly proud of having opened up new directions of research and of having discovered new basic phenomena. Among others, the following should be mentioned: The physics and chemistry of inner-valence electrons, in particular the breakdown of the molecular orbital picture of ionization, which has turned out to be a common phenomenon in molecules, adsorbates, and clusters; the intermolecular Coulombic decay in clusters; the impact of conical and other intersections of potential energy surfaces on non-adiabatic dynamics, which is of general importance for excited states of polyatomics; the prediction and chemistry of multiply-charged anions (the first ones predicted have recently been found experimentally); the classical diffusion and giant-dipole quantum states of the hydrogen atom in crossed fields, and the screening of the magnetic field at the nuclei by the electrons. Very fruitful collaborations with members of his research group and others are gratefully acknowledged.
Topics of research have comprised:
Many-body theory and applications (First ab initio applications of Green's functions to molecules)
Nuclear dynamics and wavepackets (Current interests: Auger decay and MCTDH)
Non-adiabatic phenomena (Current interests: Conical intersections in multidimensions and slow electrons)
Electron-molecule scattering
Statistics of energy levels and random matrices
Atoms and molecules in strong magnetic fields
Stable and short-lived singly- and multiply-charged anions
Born October 26, 1946 in Braunschweig, Germany.