Van der Waals interactions in density functional theory

The van der Waals density functional which we introduced half a decade ago\footnote{M. Dion et al.\ Phys.\ Rev.\ Lett. \textbf{92}, 246401 (2004).} and its self-consistent generalization\footnote{T. Thonhauser et al., Phys.\ Rev.\ B \textbf{76}, 125112 (2007).} will be briefly reviewed. There are many collaborators in the application review that will follow, not only those who worked in the physics department at Rutgers% \footnote{Maxime Dion, Aaron Puzder, T. Thonhauser, Valentino R. Cooper, Shen Li, Eamonn Murray, Lingzhu Kong, and Kyuho Lee.} and at Chalmers,% \footnote{Henrik Rydberg, Svetla Chakarova-K{\"a}ck, Jesper Kleis, Elsebeth Schr{\"o}der, Per Hyldgaard, and Bengt I. Lundqvist.} but also at Denmarks Technical University,% \footnote{Andrei Kelkkanen, Poul G. Moses, Jesper Kleis, and Bengt I. Lundqvist.} the chemistry department at Rutgers,% \footnote{Konhoa Li, Jing Li, Yves Chabal, and Wilma K. Olson.} and most recently at the University of Texas at Dallas.% \footnote{Nour Nijem and Yves Chabal.} I will expand on our recent review article,\footnote{D. C. Langreth et al., J. Phys.\ Cond.\ Mat.\ (in press).} which hopefully will be published before the present talk, and include applications by other groups not listed below. If possible, I will also review results from a more recent collaboration to study nucleosomal DNA and beyond.