Electron gas theory is one of the broadest fields in theoretical condensed matter physics, and even its most elementary application to the study of collective excitations and screening in the simpe metals poses interesting questions. Recent Electron Energy Loss and Inelastic X-Ray Scattering experiments have shown that traditional electron gas theories are unable to account for the measured plasmon dispersion relation. While it has become clear that neither correlation nor band structure alone can explain those results, the recently developed Time Dependent Density Functional Theory provides a general framework which can account for both.
