Simulation Methods in Statistical Physics, spring 2013


Book: J.M. Thijssen, Computational Physics. Frenkel and Smit's book (Understanding Molecular Simulations, available electronically from the library website) is well-written, and useful to read for this course. However, it does not cover everything that I am planning to discuss. In particular, there is no mention of Quantum MC.


Discussed so far
Coming soon:
Programming projects. The classical MC and MD projects are related. Read both descriptions all the way through before you start writing your code. The project reports are due a little less than 2 weeks before the exam, the 11th of March. If you hand in your report later, but before the 1st of April, 08:00, you can still get a minimum passing grade for the programming project in question. There will be no third programming project. Include your code electronically. You can send it in by email. Here is a list of things you might want to think about if you have bugs or get stuck.

There are exercises for bonus points. They are meant to give you an opportunity to practice the basic concepts from this course. Ask me questions about them any time. Hand them in one week after they have been posted. If you do these well enough, you get a bonus on the exam, or on the programming projects, wherever you need it the most. The bonus is proportional to the amount of exercises you have done well, so it pays to do them, even if you have not done the others. It will be a maximum of 15% of the total score. I will not hand out solutions, but you can continue to ask me questions about the exercises after the deadline, by email or in person. Note that the exam questions will be similar in style.

As mentioned in the first lecture, the weight of the exam and programming projects in the final grade is 50-50. You have to clear both to pass the course.