SUMMER SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENT

"Quantum Monte Carlo and the CASINO program"
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Sun 30th July - Sun 6th August 2006
The Towler Institute, 22 via del Collegio, Vallico Sotto, Tuscany, Italy

vallico.net/tti/tti.html

POSTER : gzipped postscript format, jpg format.

August 2006 will see the first Summer School "Quantum Monte Carlo and the CASINO program" hosted by the Cambridge University Theory of Condensed Matter Group in their monastery in the Tuscan Apuan Alps. This course is designed for young scientists with no previous experience in quantum Monte Carlo methodology, though anyone interested is welcome to take part.

Many-body quantum theory provides the key ideas for understanding the behaviour of materials at the level of the electrons which bind the atoms together. Describing the complex behaviour of materials at the atomic level requires a sophisticated description of the correlated motion of the electrons, which can be achieved using ab initio computational methods. The quantum Monte Carlo method has many attractive features for probing the electronic properties of real systems. It is an explicitly many-body method which takes electron correlation into account from the outset. It is capable of giving highly accurate results while at the same time exhibiting a very favourable scaling of computational cost with system size. Over the last 15 years, the Cambridge group have been researching QMC methods and we have created a powerful, general computer program - CASINO - to carry them out. The school will focus both on basic theory and on more advanced practical techniques, and will include a thorough introduction to the CASINO program.

Instructors will include a selection from the authors of the CASINO program (Prof. Richard Needs, Dr. Mike Towler, Dr. Neil Drummond, and Dr. Pablo Lopez Rios) and possibly others.

The monastery is a delightful 15th century building with an attached church which is used as a lecture theatre. It is fully equipped with state of the art presentation and computer technology. All accommodation is on-site and time will be set aside for mountain walking, caving, swimming in thermal baths, eating in wonderful local restaurants, and similar activities.

Interested parties should contact Mike Towler (mdt26 at cam.ac.uk) for registration and further details.