TY - JOUR AB - Problems involving quantum impurities, in which one or a few particles are interacting with a macroscopic environment, represent a pervasive paradigm, spanning across atomic, molecular, and condensed-matter physics. In this paper we introduce new variational approaches to quantum impurities and apply them to the Fröhlich polaron–a quasiparticle formed out of an electron (or other point-like impurity) in a polar medium, and to the angulon–a quasiparticle formed out of a rotating molecule in a bosonic bath. We benchmark these approaches against established theories, evaluating their accuracy as a function of the impurity-bath coupling. AU - Li, Xiang AU - Bighin, Giacomo AU - Yakaboylu, Enderalp AU - Lemeshko, Mikhail ID - 5886 JF - Molecular Physics SN - 00268976 TI - Variational approaches to quantum impurities: from the Fröhlich polaron to the angulon ER -