"Calculation of Material Properties using Total Energy and Force Methods and ab initio Molecular Dynamics"
An international course on Pseudopotential Plane Wave electronic structure calculations will be held at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, from August 9 to 18, 1999. This Bulletin contains the preliminary programme of the Workshop, request for participation form, and miscellaneous information.
ORGANIZERS:
This course will be focused on density-functional electronic structure calculations, and will provide a practical introduction to the computer program fhi98md. This program allows calculations for molecules, perfect crystals, defects in crystals, and crystal surfaces for materials as different as semiconductors, simple and transition metals, insulators, etc. The program code is portable to a variety of platforms, reaching from inexpensive PCs and UNIX workstations to massively parallel supercomputers (Cray T3E).
Every morning there will be lectures on density-functional theory, the local-density approximation, generalized gradient approximations, ab-initio pseudopotentials, ab initio molecular dynamics, etc. The afternoons will be devoted to hands-on training with computations of simple physical properties, using the computer code fhi98md. Examples of these calculations may include:
PARTICIPATION:
The Workshop is open to researchers
from all countries that are members of the United Nations, UNESCO or IAEA.
One of the main purposes of the Centre is to help researchers from developing
countries. However, scientists from developed countries will also be welcome
to attend. As the Workshop will be conducted in English, participants
should have a good knowledge of that language. Applications from
graduate students about to finish their PhD, fresh post-docs and young,
active faculty members are encouraged. A background in quantum mechanics
and the physics and chemistry of bonding is required. A good knowledge
of FORTRAN is required, and experience with personal computers
under WINDOWS or UNIX could be helpful. All this should be stated clearly
in the application.
For logistic reasons, due
to the number of PCs available, the total number of participants in the
Workshop is limited to 80 people.
As a rule, travel and subsistence expenses of the participants are borne by the home institution. However, some funds are available which permit the Centre to grant a subsistence allowance to a limited number of people from developing countries who will be selected by the Organizers. As scarcity of funds allows travel to be granted only in few exceptional cases, every effort should be made by candidates to secure support for their fares (or at least partial fare) by their home institute. Such financial support is available only to those attending the entire Workshop.
For participants who belong to the Human Capital and Mobility Network "Ab initio (from electronic structure) calculation of complex processes in materials, Psi-k" there is the possibility to receive financial support for the local as well as for the travel expenses. In case of the Network, a request should be signed by the node manager. If you have doubts about the procedure, please contact P. Kratzer . Financial support will be provided on a first-come first-served basis.
There is no registration fee for attending the Workshop.
We note that research groups who plan to use the fhi98md code later for production runs are expected to acquire a software licence. Licences are obtained directly from the Theory Department of the Fritz-Haber-Institut, and will cost about US$ 300.