SUMMER SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENT
Quantum Monte Carlo and the CASINO program IX

Sun 3rd - Sun 10th August 2014
Apuan Alps Centre for Physics @ TTI
Vallico Sotto, Tuscany, Italy

http://vallico.net/casinoqmc/summer-schools/

http://vallico.net/tti/qmcatcp_14

A4 POSTER FOR THE SCHOOL AVAILABLE HERE :
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/poster.png

The ninth international summer school in the series "Quantum Monte Carlo
and the CASINO program" will take place during August 2014 at the TTI
monastery in the Tuscan Apuan Alps in Italy, organized and hosted by
members and associates of Cambridge University physics department's Theory
of Condensed Matter Group. The aim of the school is to give students a
thorough introduction to quantum Monte Carlo as a method for performing
very high accuracy calculations of the electronic structure of atoms,
molecules, and materials. The course is designed for quantum chemists or
theoretical physicists who have no previous experience with this
technique; people at any stage of their career who are interested are
welcome to take part.

The monastery - incorporating the Apuan Alps Centre for Physics - is a
unique venue where the magnificent location and community spirit have
inspired a long series of memorable schools and workshops since it first
opened its doors almost ten years ago. It is a delightful 15th century
building incorporating an ancient church, and is situated in the isolated
but spectacular setting of the Tuscan mountain village of Vallico Sotto.
The church is fully equipped with the relevant presentation and computer
technology, and all accommodation is on-site or in other houses in the
village. As with all events at the Institute, formal lectures are
restricted to the mornings, and participants are encouraged to spend much
of the rest of the day thinking, contemplating, and discussing the issues
at hand. Practical computer exercises after lunch will be followed by a
programme of recreational activities such as mountain walks, cave trips,
and city visits organized for the latter half of most afternoons; the days
generally conclude with pleasant evening meals in local family
restaurants.

Describing the complex behaviour of materials at the atomic level requires
a sophisticated description of the correlated motion of the electrons.
Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) is an increasingly popular and explicitly
many-body method with the unique capability of yielding highly accurate
results whilst also exhibiting a very favourable scaling of computational
cost with system size, and essentially perfect parallel scaling up to (at
least) hundreds of thousands of computer cores. Over the last twenty
years, the Cambridge group have been researching QMC methods and we have
created a powerful, general computer program - CASINO - to carry out the
calculations. The school will focus both on the basic theory of QMC and on
more advanced practical techniques, and will include a thorough
introduction to the CASINO program. A background in density functional
theory or similar - though not essential - is normally thought to be
useful, as is an ability to operate computers through a Linux command line
environment.

Quantum Monte Carlo and the scaling behaviour of CASINO on the fastest
computers in the world were the subject of a recent Psi-k "Scientific
Highlight of the Month" review articles. See "Petascale computing opens
new vistas for quantum Monte Carlo" by M.J.Gillan, M.D. Towler and D.Alfe,
available for download here:

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/papers/petascale_psik.pdf

The UK QMC community now has its own participatory website and discussion
forum where one can find further information about the method, together
with a comprehensive archive of talks and papers:

http://vallico.net/casinoqmc/

Instructors at the school will include the main authors of the CASINO
program: Dr. Pablo Lopez Rios (Cambridge), Dr. Neil Drummond (Lancaster)
and Dr. Mike Towler (Cambridge/UCL) and very probably others.

Participants who need to fly to Italy would normally book a flight to Pisa
airport (or conceivably Florence) from where onward transportation will be
arranged. Other airports such as Milano/Roma are possible if you don't
mind a longer train trip. Details of previous schools - including
photographs and commentary from the participants - are available on the
CASINO-QMC web site: http://vallico.net/casinoqmc/summer-schools

Interested students should email Mike Towler (mdt26 at cam.ac.uk) for
registration and further information.