[LA-SiGMA] Courses being offered this Spring, please register asap: Atomic and Molecular Physics, GPU Microarchitecture, Comp. Biology, Comp. Physics, Many Body Theory, and Condensed Matter Theory

Thu Jan 9 09:26:27 CST 2014

Dear all, 

    A new LA-SiGMA course is going to be broadcast from Tulane: Atomic and Molecular Physics, taught by Noa Marom this spring. A total of six courses are being offered. Students and faculty can participate remotely using videoconferencing.

Atomic and Molecular Physics, Noa Maron (Tulane), M W F 10:00-10:50
GPU Microarchitecture, David Koppelman (LSU), M W F 12:30-1:20   
Computational Biology, Michal Brylinksi (LSU), T TH 9:00-10:20  
Computational Physics, Juana Moreno (LSU),   M W F 8:30-9:20
Many Body Theory, Mark Jarrell (LSU),    T TH 9:00-10:20    
Condensed Matter Physics, Ilya Vekhter (LSU),   T TH 12:00-1:20 

   If you are a LSU or Tulane student interested in these courses, please register now to ensure the course meets the required minimum student enrollment (class registration numbers are provided below). Students at other universities, please contact Juana Moreno at moreno at lsu.edu by Friday, Jan 10th, to arrange for the course to be offered at your university. Postdocs can attend without registering but we ask you to notify us. Classes begin January 15th and end May 3rd at LSU. Classes begin January 13th and end April 29th at Tulane. Course descriptions are shown below.

******************  Atomic and Molecular Physics *********************************
In this course we will apply quantum mechanics to study the properties of materials. We will learn how electrons interact to form atoms and molecules. We will introduce the many-electron problem and explore approximate methods for solving it, including linear combination of atomic orbitals, Hartree-Fock, and density functional theory (DFT). Students will learn the fundamental physics behind the quantum mechanical computer simulations, which have become one of the essential tools of modern science. They will understand the advantages, limitations, and interrelations of the various theoretical approaches covered. They will understand how theory can answer questions, such as: What materials can exist and with what properties? What is the geometry (bond lengths and angles) of a molecule, solid, or nano-structure? How is the electron density distributed over space? What are the vibrational frequencies of the atomic nuclei in a given material? If time permits, students will acquire hands on experience using a DFT code. Prerequisites: undergraduate quantum mechanics. Classes meet Monday, Wednesday and Friday 10:00-10:50. For more information, please contact Noa Maron at nmarom at tulane.edu.
* At Tulane. the course registration number is PHYS 7160. Classes will meet at the CCS seminar room.

******************  GPU Microarchitecture *********************************
This graduate course is taught by David Koppelman. This course will start with an overview of accelerators (e.g., NVIDIA GPU, Xeon Phi) and a survey of APIs (CUDA, OpenCL, OpenMP, OpenACC). It will continue with a discussion of parallelism (threads, latency, performance limiters), CPU execution features (dynamic scheduling, caches, branch prediction), execution architecture (many-thread (NVIDIA GPU) vs. many-core (Xeon Phi) organization, functional units, scheduling), storage hierarchy and synchronization (address spaces,  scratchpad stores and cache, basic data access and reduction strategies), instruction sets, basic algorithms (matrix multiplication, reduction, stencil calculations, sorting) and new research directions in heterogeneous computing. Classes meet Monday, Wednesday and Friday 12:30-1:20. For more information, please visit http://www.ece.lsu.edu/koppel/gp/ or contact David Koppelman at "koppel at ece.lsu.edu". 
* At LSU, the course registration number is EE 7722. Classes will meet at 307 Frey.    

****************** Computational Biology: from sequence to structure to function  *************
This is a graduate course taught by Michal Brylinksi. It will focus on computational techniques broadly used in biological sciences to support experimental research. It will cover current methods for the modeling of protein structure and molecular function from genomic data, with emphasis placed on principles and methods commonly used in structure-based drug design. The strengths and limitations of divers molecular modeling strategies will be discussed. Students are expected to be able to apply many of the covered modeling techniques to their research. Classes will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00-10:20. For more information, please visit http://brylinski.cct.lsu.edu/content/teaching or contact Michal Brylinksi at "mbrylinski at lsu.edu".
* At LSU, the course registration number is BIOL 7800. Classes will meet at Coates 202. 

****************** Computational Physics: Computing for Petascale Systems ***************
This is a three-credit graduate course taught by Juana Moreno. It focuses on high performance computing (HPC) and the techniques used in designing and implementing computationally intensive applications on HPC systems. High performance systems including traditional parallel supercomputers, Linux clusters, and heterogeneous computing (such as GPUs and Intel Xeon Phi) will be discussed. The course will focus on parallelization and memory access optimization for computationally intensive applications in science and engineering. Classes meet Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8:30-9:20. For additional information, please visit http://magnet.phys.lsu.edu/~juana/Syllabus.html or contact Juana Moreno at "moreno at lsu.edu".
* At LSU, the course registration number is PHYS 7411. Classes will meet at 307 Frey.

******************  Many Body Theory  *********************************
This graduate course focuses on advanced many-body techniques in material science, and is taught by Mark Jarrell. If students were interested, the first month of the course will be dedicated to discuss advanced statistical mechanics, including the physics of phase transitions (scale invariance near the critical point, scaling, renormalization group, etc). The rest of the course would be focused in many body theory either using a conventional approach (Gellman-Low, Wick's theory) or a path-integral based approach. Non-equilibrium Green function formalism, the  Keldysh formalism, or even the Wagner formalism could be also discussed. In addition, several many-body numerical methods are derived and used in class projects, including Dynamical Mean Field Approximation, Dynamical Cluster Approximation and renormalization group. A basic course in Condensed Matter/Solid State Physics (Ashcroft/Mermin) is a suggested pre-requisite for this course. Classes meet Tuesday and Thursday 9:00-10:20. For additional information, please visit http://www.phys.lsu.edu/~jarrell/COURSES/ADV_SOLID_HTML/course_advss.html or contact Mark Jarrell at "jarrellphysics at gmail.com".
* At LSU the course registration number is PHYS 7893. Classes will meet at 307 Frey.

******************  Condensed Matter Physics *********************************
A graduate course taught by Ilya Vekhter aimed at both experiment and theory students working in condensed matter physics. The course focuses on a phenomenological description of ordered phases,  especially on magnetism and superconductivity. We will learn how to write the appropriate Ginzburg-Landau theory for different situations based on symmetry principles. We will then describe ferro- and anti-ferromagnetic orders, structure of the magnetic domains and domain walls, superconductivity, influence of an applied magnetic field on magnetic and superconducting order, and interplay between the two. A connection between the simplest microscopic models and the Ginzburg-Landau expansion will be discussed. Current technology allows the class to be highly interactive and discussion-based across campuses. Classes meet Tuesday and Thursday 12:00-1:20. For additional information, please contact Ilya Vekhter at "vekhter at lsu.edu".
* At LSU the course registration number is PHYS 7364. Classes will meet at 307 Frey.

   For questions, please contact Juana Moreno at moreno at lsu.edu.

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