  On the basis of a new ab initio, all-electron response scheme, formulated
within time-dependent density-functional theory, we solve the puzzle posed by
the anomalous dispersion of the plasmon linewidth in K. The key damping
mechanism is shown to be decay into particle-hole pairs involving empty states
of d-symmetry. While the effect of many-particle correlations is small, the
correlations built into the "final-state" -d-bands play an important, and
novel, role ---which is related to the phase-space complexity associated with
these flat bands. Our case study of plasmon lifetime in K illustrates the
importance of ab initio paradigms for the study of excitations in
correlated-electron systems.
