ICTS

Phenomena in many systems of interest in materials science, soft condensed matter physics and biology require analysis of processes that span a wide range of time and length scales, from atomic level details of bonding and corresponding dynamics to the emergence of morphologies of interest on mesoscopic scales, occurring on times scales of seconds, hours and beyond. Computational modeling of such phenomena has always been a challenge. Separate models for different scales, for example from models that focus on an atomic level description to those that treat the system at a gross macroscopic level, have been around for some time now. However, models that systematically coarse grain the description or models that incorporate the treatment of different scales into one description are just beginning to emerge. Development of a multi-scale modeling strategy and methods would expand the range of applications of firstprinciples methodology to phenomena which involve much longer time and length-scales. Progress in such modeling is aimed at linking of atomic level models and calculations to larger scale computations such as the simulation of devices or a biological cell. It is thus timely and appropriate to bring together people working on the development of multi-scale simulation methods in soft and hard materials, and use the exchange of ideas and tricks of the trade to facilitate development of more robust approaches to multi-scale simulations across these disciplines. The proposed event will have a school that is scheduled for ten days, to be followed by a four day conference. We envisage the content of the school as divided into roughly four parts, with pedagogical level lectures and tutorial sessions, on (a) General strategies and formalism for coarse graining, (b) Hybrid Quantum-Classical modeling, (c) Coarse grained modeling of soft and bio-molecular systems and (d) Multiscale modeling of solids and surface phenomena (including phenomena such as catalysis). The lectures will be typically of 90 minutes duration, with two such lectures planned per day during the morning session.
There will be hands-on sessions and discussions in the afternoons. The school will be followed by a four day conference at which active researchers in multi-scale modeling from around the world will present state of the art approaches and results in this area.

Target audience: The target audience for the school will be Ph.D. students, typically beyond 2 years of Ph D study, with graduate level training in computation, engaged in computational research. Similar criteria apply to other, more senior, researchers. The conference is aimed at all researchers engaged in computational modeling in material science and biology, including physicists, chemists, biologists and engineers.