The second "Quantum Monte Carlo in the Apuan Alps" international workshop took place from 22nd-29th July 2006. The participants spent four hours each morning listening to talks on the quantum Monte Carlo method, followed by an afternoon of mountain walking or other activities. The days were concluded with evening discussions, dinner, and singing along to guitarists Pablo and Dario.

• Original announcement
• Photo slideshow
• Participant photos :
  - Andrea Ma
  - Idoia Garcia de Gurtubay

List of participants

Ali Alavi, Alexander Badinski, Dario Bressanini, Neil Drummond, Matthew Foulkes, Idoia Garcia de Gurtubay, Ainsley Gibson, Richard Hennig, Nick Hine, Pablo Lopez Rios, Andrea Ma, Ryo Maezono, Lubos Mitas, Richard Needs, Zoltan Radnai, Ian Snook, Graham Spink, Mike Towler, John Trail, Saska Towler, Samantha Keil, Marie Snook, Stacy Hennig.

Talks presented

Ali Alavi (asa10 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "Quantum Monte Carlo based on the idea of sampling graphs" [PPT]

Alexander Badinski (ab582 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "Accurate forces from ab initio pseudopotentials within QMC" [PDF]

Dario Bressanini (dario.bressanini at uninsubria.it)

• - "Is QMC delivering its early promises? (with some reflections on nodes and wave functions)" [PPT]

Neil Drummond (ndd21 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "Ab initio study of positron annihilation in a homogeneous electron gas" [PDF]
  - "Some QMC puzzles" [PDF]

Matthew Foulkes (m.foulkes at ic.ac.uk)

• - "Finite size corrections: structure factor or MPC or both?" [PDF]

Idoia Garcia de Gurtubay (ig243 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "QMC dissociation energy of the water dimer: time-step errors and backflow calculations" [PDF]

Ainsley Gibson (ainsley.gibson at gmail.com)

• - "Quantum Monte Carlo for 'difficult' systems in materials chemistry" [PPT]

Richard Hennig (hennig.4 at osu.edu)

• - "Accuracy of the pseudopotential and fixed-node approximations for first and second-row dimers" [PDF]

Nick Hine (nicholas.hine at imperial.ac.uk)

• - "The surface energy of the electron gas: resolving a long-standing contradiction" [PPT]

Pablo Lopez Rios (pl275 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "Inhomogeneous backflow transformations in quantum Monte Carlo" [PDF]
  - ..and the accompanying movie [GIF]

Andrea Ma (am570 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "The equation of state of diamond" [PDF]

Ryo Maezono (maezono.ryo at nims.go.jp)

• - "The fragment method in QMC" [PPT]

Lubos Mitas (lmitas at unity.ncsu.edu)

• - "Topology of fermion nodes and Pfaffian pairing wave functions" [PDF]

Richard Needs (rn11 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "Where are the atoms?" [PDF]

Zoltan Radnai (zr205 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "Non-collinear spins in QMC: application to spiral spin density waves" [PDF]

Ian Snook (ian.snook at rmit.edu.au)

• - "QMC and weak physical interactions" [PPT]

Graham Spink (ggs24 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "Remaining problems in the homogeneous electron gas" [PPT]

John Trail (jrt32 at cam.ac.uk)

• - "QMC: what are the odds of that?" [PDF]