Book Description

Complicated many-particle problems abound in nature and in research alike. Plasma physics, for example, or statistical and condensed matter physics are all heavily dependent on efficient methods for solving such problems. Addressing graduate students and young researchers, this book presents an overview and introduction to state-of-the-art numerical methods for studying interacting classical and quantum many-particle systems. A broad range of techniques and algorithms are covered, and emphasis is placed on their implementation on modern high-performance computers.

Book Description
These volumes collect the lecture notes of the course An introduction to computational physics held in the academic year 2000/01 for students of the University of Pisa and Scuola Normale Superiore at the level of the last two-year undergraduates in physics and chemistry. Grid methods are the tool of the trade for the solution of ordinary and partial differential equations and consequently they represent a must for anyone dealing with computational science. With grid methods, a major distinction is made between methods which do not require matrix algebra and those which do. ... Read more

Book Description
The symposium "Computational and Group-Theoretical Methods in Nuclear Physics" was organized to celebrate the 60th birthday of Jerry P Draayer, who is Professor of Physics, Lousiana State University, and President of the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA). The focus of the meeting was on computational and algebraic approaches to the nuclear many-body problem. The presentations highlighted recent experimental and theoretical developments in nuclear structure physics. ... Read more

Book Description

Computational Physics is now a discipline in its own right, comparable with theoretical and experimental physics. Computational Materials Science concentrates on the calculation of materials properties starting from microscopic theories. It has become a powerful tool in industrial research for designing new materials, modifying materials properties and optimizing chemical processes. This book focusses on the application of computational methods in new fields of research, such as nanotechnology, spintronics and photonics, which will provide the foundation for important technological advances in the future. Methods such as electronic structure calculations, molecular dynamics simulations and beyond are presented, the discussion extending from the basics to the latest applications.

Customer Reviews (1)

Difficult and dense
This is the most difficult book I have ever read on computational materials science.I do not recommend this book for anyone that has not previously taken classes in solid state physics, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, partial diff equations, linear algebra, and computer programming.

The book's title states "... From Basic Principles to Material Properties".This is a major misnomer.When I read the term basic principles, I think of Hartree-Fock, classical MD with empirical potentials, EAM, and maybe tight binding.These basic topics are not covered in this text.Instead, the book begins with a short introduction to DFT, and quickly goes into Green's functions, ab initio molecular dynamics, calculation of optical and magnetic properties, and other quite advanced topics in the field.

The text is very advanced and includes a lot of complicated equations.Trying to follow some of the equations I quickly discovered that variables were often used that were not defined; a major no-no.The language itself seems written by professors to be read by other professors.Additionally, this is a very expensive book for only 300+ pages of material.I believe this high price is to cover the occasional color figures.I would not purchase this book, unless you have several years of experience doing ab initio modeling, and wish to learn about the more difficult techniques out there. ... Read more

Book Description
This extensively revised and expanded third edition of the Artech House bestseller, Computational Electrodynamics: The Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method, offers you the most up-to-date and definitive resource on this critical method for solving Maxwell's equations.There has been considerable advancement in FDTD computational technology over the past few years, and this new edition brings you the very latest details with four new invited chapters on advanced techniques for PSTD, unconditional stability, provably stable FDTD-FETD hybrids, and hardware acceleration. Moreover, you find many completely new sections throughout the book, including major updates on convolutional PML ABCs; dispersive, nonlinear, classical-gain, and quantum-gain materials; and micro-, nano-, and bio- photonics.

This single resource provides complete guidance on FDTD techniques and applications, from basic concepts, to the current state-of-the-art. It enables you to more efficiently and effectively design and analyze key electronics and photonics technologies, including wireless communications devices, high-speed digital and microwave circuits, and integrated optics. You find sample FDTD codes written in Matlab® that serve as a self-guided refresher, and examples of how to use the FDTD method on a wide range of projects in the field.What's more, to supplement the third edition, the authors and publisher have created a Website where you can find solutions to the problems, sample FDTD PML codes, text updates/errata, and downloadable color graphics and videos. Consequently, this new edition is the ideal textbook for both a senior-year undergraduate elective course and a graduate course in computational electrodynamics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The book for FDTD
Very well written and comprehensive. Explains things clearly. Captures all the important advances made in the field up through its publication and of course is written by pioneers in the field. Covers all bases of interest in EM modeling. You can start coding your own grids after reading it. It is the standard book in the FDTD literature.

The book for FDTD
This book is an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable reference/tutorial. The book is suitable for use in an advanced undergraduate/first-year graduate class with a prerequisite of one semester of undergraduate E&M. (The authors' preface indicates that this prerequisite is not entirely necessary, but I don't see how you could understand what is going on without it.)

The book can also be used for self-study. In this vein, the book's website contains 1d-, 2d-, and 3d-matlab scripts that are excellent for learning how to actually implement all of this stuff. The third edition weighs in at just over 1000 pages with a price tag of $139, which is $10 cheaper than the 2nd edition was when it came out.

Allen Taflove is, perhaps, the leader in the development and use of this technique. Allen is now at Northwestern. Susan Hagness was a recent PhD student of his (1998) and is now an associateprofessor in the ElectricalandComputerEngineering department at theUniversityofWisconsin. The authors are at the forefront in the development of applications.

The third edition is significantly larger than the 2nd edition and includes several applications chapters that were cowritten with the major researchers in the field. The extraordinary explosion of application areas for FDTD is captured in the later chapters, and these chapters give students and new researchers a clear flavor of the vitality and interest in the field which extends from the detection of breast cancer to ELF pulses produced by earthquakes. It is refreshing to find authors who so readily give credit to others in their field. Taflove and Hagness have been very gracious in this regard, and as a consequence have a much better book and a very detailed and useful bibliography.

I very heartily recommend this book to anyone who wishes to use FDTD techniques.

Agree with Prior Reviewer
I cannot quite honestly give this book (*first* edition, not second) a full five-point-zero stars because it somewhat comes apart the closer one gets to the final chapters.I read this book a few years ago, so I apologize for lack of specificity.However, Icompletely agree with the prior reviewer who stated that this book is better than Kunz's and Luebbers' book, which I appears to be a slightly edited compilation of previous publications --- even if that is completely untrue.In fact, in my opinion, Taflove's book (again, first edition) is a *much* better textbook than Kunz and Luebbers.

The Book News review is somewhat misleading.Taflove derives the difference equations in full, painstaking detail.(Perhaps the Book News reviewer fell asleep during that portion.)For me, this was the most valuable and educational portion of the book.Example applications have their place, but only after understanding the basic principles.Taflove did an excellent job in describing these principles, which go far beyond the basic Yee algorithm (e.g. extrapolation techniques and incorporation of BC's).Those readers familiar with other FD books should understand what I'm saying here: Anyone who reads this book and understands it will not only be conversant about FDTD but should also be able to write solid working codes.With the K&L book, this is very questionable.

A good overview of FD-TD method
A good intro book for the FD-TD method with many applications. The list of references at the end of each chapter is also very useful. Some of the material is now outdated and needs corrections, but otherwise a greatreference for CEM. I would recommend this book over the Kunz & LuebbersFD-TD book. ... Read more

Book Description
The central theme, which threads through the entire book, concerns computational modeling methods for water. Modeling results for pure liquid water, water near ions, water at interfaces, water in biological microsystems, and water under other types of perturbations such as laser fields are described. Connections are made throughout the book with statistical mechanical theoretical methods on the one hand and with experimental data on the other. The book is expected to be useful not only for theorists and computer analysts interested in the physical, chemical, biological and geophysical aspects of water, but also for experimentalists in these fields. ... Read more

Book Description
This volume contains a careful selection of papers presented byleading scientists at the workshop on `Modern Group Analysis: AdvancedAnalytical and Computational Methods in Mathematical Physics' held atCatania in Sicily, October 27--31, 1992.
The thirty-nine contributions presented embrace the followingtopics:
Classical Lie groups applied to the construction ofinvariant solutions and conservation laws; conditional (partial)symmetries; Bäcklund transformations; approximate symmetries;group analysis of finite-difference equations; problems of groupclassification and software packages in group analysis.
Together this selection of papers provides excellent reviews of manyof the exciting developments in this rapidly expanding branch ofapplied mathematics.
For researchers in mathematical physics and applied mathematics whosework involves group analysis and its applications.
... Read more

Book Description
A variety of standard problems in theoretical nuclear-structure physics is addressed by the well-documented computer codes presented in this book. Most of these codes were available up to now only through personal contact. The subject matter ranges from microscopic models (the shell, Skyrme-Hartree-Fock, and cranked Nilsson models) through collective excitations (RPA, IBA, and geometric model) to the relativistic impulse approximation, three-body calculations, variational Monte Carlo methods, and electron scattering. The 5 1/4'' high-density floppy disk that comes with the book contains the FORTRAN codes of the problems that are tackled in each of the ten chapters. In the text, the precise theoretical foundations and motivations of each model or method are discussed together with the numerical methods employed. Instructions for the use of each code, and how to adapt them to local compilers and/or operating systems if necessary, are included. ... Read more

Book Description
This book brings together interdisciplinary contributions ranging from applied mathematics, theoretical physics, quantum chemistry and molecular biology, all addressing various facets of the problem to connect the many different scales that one has to deal with in the computer simulation of many systems of interest in chemistry (e.g. polymeric materials, biological molecules, clusters, surface and interface structure). Particular emphasis is on the "multigrid technique" and its applications, ranging from electronic structure calculations to the statistical mechanics of polymers. ... Read more

Book Description
Market: Mathematicians, researchers, teachers, and graduate students specializing in quantum physics, mathematical physics, and applied mathematics. "I really enjoyed reading this work. It is very well written, by three real experts in the field. It stands quite alone....The translation is remarkably good." John R. Taylor, University of Colorado Based on lectures delivered over the past two decades, this book explains in detail the theory of linear Hilbert-space operators and its uses in quantum physics. The central mathematical tool of this book is the spectral theory of self-adjoint operators, which together with functional analysis and an introduction to the theory of operator sets and algebras, is used in a systematic analysis of the operator aspect of quantum theory. In addition, the theory of Hilbert-space operators is discussed in conjunction with various applications such as Schrodinger operators and scattering theory. ... Read more

Book Description

"Molecular Materials with Specific Interactions: Modeling and Design" has a very interdisciplinary character and is intended to provide basic information as well as the details of theory and examples of its application to experimentalists and theoreticians interested in modeling molecular properties and putting into practice rational design of new materials.