5th School & Workshop on "Time-Dependent Density-Functional Theory: Prospects and Applications"

January 4th 2012 to January 18th 2012

Centro de Ciencias de Benasque Pedro Pascual (Benasque, Spain; http://benasque.org/)

http://benasque.org/2012tddft/

Organizers:

E. K. U. Gross,
Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik,
Weinberg 2, D - 06120 Halle, Germany
Phone: +49 3455582763
Mail: hardy@mpi-halle.de

M. A. L. Marques,
Laboratoire de Physique de la Matiére Condensé et des Nanostructures (LPMCN)
Université Lyon I, UMR CNRS 5586, Bâtiment Brilloin
Domaine scientifique de la DOUA, Villeurbanne F-69622, France
Mail: marques@tddft.org

F. Nogueira,
Dep. de Física, Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia
Universidade de Coimbra and Centro de Física Computacional
Rua Larga, 3004-516 Coimbra, Portugal
Phone: +351-239410114
Mail: fnog@teor.fis.uc.pt
http://nautilus.fis.uc.pt/~fnog/

A. Rubio,
Dpto. Fisica de Materiales, Facultad de Quimicas U. Pais Vasco,
Centro Mixto CSIC-UPV/EHU and Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC)
Apdo. 1072, 20018 San Sebastian/Donostia, Spain
Phone: +34-943018292
Mail: arubio@ehu.es

A. Castro
Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems (BIFI),
Universidad de Zaragoza,
Edificio I+D, Calle Mariano Esquillor s/n
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
Phone: +34 976761000 ext 5354
Mail: acastro@bifi.es

Summary:

This proposed School & Workshop is the fifth of a very successful series that started in 2004. The positive response to this first event, also held in the “Centro de Ciencias de Benasque Pedro Pascual”, from August 28th to September 12th 2004, encouraged the organization of the sequels in the same place with an approximate periodicity of two years (2006, 2008 and 2010). The purpose has in all occasions been to (1) make a very intense introduction to both the theory, the practice, and the numerical implementation of time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT), mainly (but not exclusively) oriented to young scientists willing to initiate or strengthen their knowledge and skills on TDDFT, followed by (2) a workshop on the subject in which all the main aspects are to be covered by the leading experts. All the students of the school are expected to participate in the workshop, in order to learn about the state-of-the-art of the subject, after being exposed to the fundamentals.

Since TDDFT is a rapidly evolving field of Science, the precise content of both school and workshop have changed over the years – although the format of the events has been largely unaltered. In this occasion, for example, we plan to increase our attention on the implementation of the density- functional based methods on the increasingly parallel (and powerful) high performance computing facilities – the step towards the so-called “petascale” computing.

In all occasions there has been a very large number of applicants for the school, that has increased every edition to become more than 150. This is not only a testimony of the strong pulse of the scientific field itself, but also of the good quality of the school. Since we want to maximize the learning experience of the
students via a close interaction with the teachers (and also due to the logistic limitations imposed by the hands-on tutorial), the participants of the school will not exceed 50, as it has been in previous editions. The total number of participants in the full School & Workshop has been close to 110 in all occasions. It is worth
mentioning that participants came from all over the world, making this series of schools and workshops a truly global event.

The quality of the scientific work presented in the first edition prompted the organizers to edit a Springer Lecture Notes book with the contributions of both speakers and teachers of the workshop and the school, respectively. The book was carefully edited to provide a comprehensive survey of the subject (TDDFT and related methods), maintaining a pedagogical style. A copy of this book was then offered to all participants in the 3rd and 4th event, and served as basic course material for the school. In this occasion, a new book is being prepared in advance, and it will be distributed to the participants of this 5th School & Workshop. The need for an update of the text is due to the fast evolving nature of the subject.

Location/Timing:

We plan to organize this event at the “Centro de Ciencias de Benasque Pedro Pascual”, Benasque, Spain (http://benasque.org/), from January 4th, 2012 to January 18th, 2012. Benasque is a beautiful town in the
heart of the Pyrenees. The school will take place from Janary 4th (Day 0 - arrival of students for the school) to January 13th, and the workshop will start January 13th (arrival of participants to the workshop) and finish on January 18th (departure of all participants).

Participants:

The call for participation will be mainly directed to students and scientists specialized on computational physics, quantum chemistry and biophysics. We will limit the number of students to the school to 40 and participants to the workshop to less than 100, in order to ensure a maximum interaction between all the scientists participating. Attendance of graduate students and post-docs will be strongly encouraged through the inclusion of short contributed talks and a poster session. Furthermore, we will award to PhD students who present an outstanding poster short oral presentations.

Applications/Support:
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All persons who wish to participate should fill out the application form at:

http://benasque.org/2012tddft/

In the comments section, please indicate if you wish to participate in the Summer Summer School or in the Workshop (or in both).

School only:

As we have a very limited number of places for the school, students will be selected from among an open pool of applicants who have demonstrated a strong interest in computational sciences, applied to chemistry, physics, materials science and biology. Therefore, in order that we can make a reasonable selection, we ask that *all* candidates include in the comments section the following information:

*) Date of birth, gender
*) Motivation/Why they want to come (just a couple of lines is enough)
*) What is their current and previous positions (if PhD or Post-doc
   state your supervisor).

We will *not* accept applications that do not include this information. Furthermore, we will give priority to students willing to participate in both the Summer School and the Workshop.

We also have a certain number of grants available that cover traveling and part of the stay in Benasque. If you want to apply for a grant, please indicate explicitly that you wish to be supported in the comments section, and explain why (just a couple of lines is enough).

For participants coming from the USA, please check the following address for support:

http://www.mcc.uiuc.edu/