First Les Houches school in computational physics - soft matter

Jun 20, 2011 - Jul 01, 2011
Location: Les Houches/Rhone-Alpes/France

Organizers:

• Jean-Louis BARRAT (Université Lyon 1)
• Ralf EVERAERS (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon)
• Werner KRAUTH (École Normale Supérieure, Paris)

The school will present computational methods for the study of soft matter. It is the first of a series proposed within the prestigious settings of the Les Houches physics center, and intended to disseminate the methods of atomic and molecular simulation in an audience of advanced undergaduate (second year of master) and PhD students. Such methods are rarely presented in the typical curriculum of physics or chemistry students.

The aim of the school is to make the students familiar with the numerical techniques used in their field of (condensed matter) physics and the physical concepts underlyiong these methods, and to allow them to gain some practice by actually implementing some of these numerical techniques.

Although the school will be centered on methodological issues a general theme in terms of physical applications will be maintained within each session, so that the lectures can include physical examples of general interest to the audience. Some of the lectures (e.g. MD or MC) could be repeated in several sessions.

Format : typically 5-6 lectures of 4x1h30, 2 weeks (10 days) ; the students would be expected to carry out a numerical project in relation with one of the lectures, supervised by one of the lecturers. Suggesting a project will be part of the application procedure. The last two days would be devoted to presentations made by students. Lecturers stay for the whole duration of the school. Lecture notes/slides would be made available electronically but not published.