Description
Book SynopsisFirst published in 2007, this second edition was fully updated with several new sections and chapters. It covers many different computational methodologies and will interest graduate students and researchers in theoretical, computational and experimental physics with a background in elementary programming, numerical analysis, and field theory, condensed matter theory and statistical physics.
Trade Review'The growing importance of computational physics to physics research as a whole will depend not only on increasingly powerful computers, but also on the continuing development of algorithms and numerical techniques for putting these machines to use. Furthermore, physics departments will need to augment their curricula to provide students with the skills needed to perform research using computers … In Computational Physics, [Jos] Thijssen has produced a book that is well suited to meeting these needs … This book makes it easier to approach a new topic and encourages the reader to consider a modular approach when writing programs.' Physics Today
'… I find this book very useful since it provides a thorough discussion of the computational methods used in physics combined with an extensive presentation of the underlying physics … On the one hand an experienced researcher can easily transfer the obtained knowledge from this book to a particular research topic, while on the other hand a newcomer in the field will benefit from the presentation of the subject from first principles.' Lampros Nikolopoulos, Contemporary Physics
Table of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Quantum scattering with a spherically symmetric potential; 3. The variational method for the Schrödinger equation; 4. The Hartree–Fock method; 5. Density functional theory; 6. Solving the Schrödinger equation in periodic solids; 7. Classical equilibrium statistical mechanics; 8. Molecular dynamics simulations; 9. Quantum molecular dynamics; 10. The Monte Carlo method; 11. Transfer matrix and diagonalisation of spin chains; 12. Quantum Monte Carlo methods; 13. The infinite element method for partial differential equations; 14. The lattice Boltzmann method for fluid dynamics; 15. Computational methods for lattice field theories; 16. High performance computing and parallelism; Appendix A. Numerical methods; Appendix B. Random number generators; References; Index.
