QUANTUM MONTE CARLO AND THE CASINO PROGRAM VI
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Sat 30th July - Sat 6th August 2011

Apuan Alps Centre for Physics :-: TTI, Vallico Sotto, Tuscany, Italy

http://www.vallico.net/tti/tti.html

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

The sixth international summer school in the series "Quantum Monte Carlo
and the CASINO program" will take place during August 2011 at the TTI 
monastery in the Tuscan Apuan Alps in Italy, organized and hosted by 
members 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 
high-quality calculations of the electronic structure of atoms, molecules,
and materials. The course is designed for young quantum chemists or 
theoretical physicists who have no previous experience with this 
technique, though anyone interested is welcome to take part, including 
old people. 

The monastery is a unique venue where the community spirit and magnificent
location have inspired memorable workshops in the past. It is a delightful
16th 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 relevant presentation and
computer technology, and all accommodation is on-site.  As with all events
at the Institute, formal lectures are restricted to the mornings, and
participants are given the freedom and space to think and to contemplate
and discuss the issues at hand. In addition to hands-on exercises, a
programme of healthy recreational activities will be organized in the
afternoons, and it is hoped that by following this strict regime, together
with breathing clean mountain air and by preparing and sampling fine
Tuscan cuisine, the participant will be able to return home mentally and
physically refreshed as well as better informed.

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 unusual capability of yielding highly accurate
results whilst also exhibiting a very favourable scaling of computational
cost with system size. Over the last eighteen 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.

Quantum Monte Carlo and the scaling behaviour of CASINO on the fastest
computers in the world were the subject of this month's Psi-k "Scientific
Highlight of the Month" review article. 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.psi-k.org/newsletters/News_103/Highlight_103.pdf

Instructors at the school will include the main authors of the CASINO
program (Dr. Mike Towler, Dr. Neil Drummond and Dr. Pablo Lopez Rios) and
possibly others.

Participants would normally need to book a flight to Pisa airport from 
where onward transportation will be arranged (though other destinations
are possible). Details of previous schools - including photographs - are
available under the PUBLIC EVENTS link on the TTI web site.

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

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