This course will provide students with the fundamentals of computational problem-solving techniques that are used to understand and predict properties of nanoscale systems. Emphasis will be placed on how to use simulations effectively, intelligently, and cohesively to predict properties that occur at the nanoscale for real systems. The course is designed to present a broad overview of computational nanoscience and is therefore suitable for both experimental and theoretical researchers. Specific …

In this lecture, we continue our discussion of Monte Carlo simulation. Examples from Hard Sphere Monte Carlo simulations based on the Metropolis algorithm and from Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations of fullerene growth on spherical surfaces are presented. A discussion of meaningful statistics, result interpretation, and error analysis is presented as well.University of California, Berkeley.

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The purpose of this lecture is to introduce Monte Carlo methods as a form of stochastic simulation. Some introductory examples of Monte Carlo methods are given, and a basic introduction to relevant concepts in statistical mechanics is presented. Students will be introduced to the Metropolis approach to Monte Carlo simulation. Using Metropolis as an example, these lectures also introduce the comcepts of balance and detailed balance, and what “efficient sampling” means.

This lecture provides and introduction to Quantum Monte Carlo methods. We review the concept of electron correlation and introduce Variational Monte Carlo methods as an approach to going beyond the mean field approximation. We describe briefly the Slater-Jastrow expansion of the wavefunction, and show how we can recover the some of the correlation energy using a variational approach to optimizing this form of the wavefunction.Lucas K. Wagner University of California, Berkeley