Syllabus

Instructor

• Dr. Branislav K. Nikolic
  • Email: bnikolic@udel.edu
  • Web: http://web.physics.udel.edu/about/directory/faculty/branislav-k-nikolic
  • Phone: (302) 831-2943
  • Fax: (302) 831-1637

Calendar for Spring 2014

• Monday and Friday: 9:05AM-9:55AM in 305 Pearson.
• Wednesday: 9:05AM-9:55AM in 118 Sharp Lab.
• Office hours: MW 1:00-2:00PM in 234 Sharp Lab, or by appointment (send me an email).
• Classes start on Monday, February 10 and terminate on Monday, May 19.
• Poster Session: Tuesday, May 13 at 4:00PM in Sharp Lab Commons Room.
• Breaks:
  • Spring recess, March 31-April 6.
  • Instructor's travel schedule: May 5-6.

Course Objectives

• To encourage students to "discover" physics in a way how physicists learn by doing research.
• To open a gateway for a deeper understanding of the physics learned in other courses.
• To introduce numerical methods and new areas of physics that can be studied using them.
• To show how physics can be applied in a much broader context than discussed in traditional curriculum.
• To introduce students to the frontiers of high performance scientific computing.

Course Topics

• Computation in Classical Physics: projectile motion, physics of baseball, oscillations, chaos in non-linear equations, 2-, 3-and n-body dynamics, vibrations in glasses.
• Computation in Quantum Physics: Schrödinger equation (time-independent and time dependent), variational methods, spectral methods.
• Competition in Statistical Mechanics: random systems. random walks and diffusion, Monte-Carlo techniques, percolation, Ising model, phase transitions.
• Complexity: cellular automata, self-organized criticality, Fractals, protein folding, neural networks (spin glasses), genetic algorithms.

Requirements

This is a Research Project-based course: There are no weekly homeworks and no midterm or final exams. Projects will be announced on Mondays on the Research Project section of this Web site, and final Report (written in the form emulating a scientific paper - see guidelines for more information) is due after 14 days on Mondays at midnight. The Report should be submitted by email (bnikolic at udel.edu) as two files: (i) PDF file of the Report itself + (ii) ASCII source code of your program. The files must be labeled as follows (substitute with pertinent file extension if you are sending something else than Matlab m-file as your code):

• project<no>_<your_last_name>.pdf
• project<no>_code_<your_last_name>.m

The report should start with a clear front page containing information akin to journal publications:

• project title,
• your name,
• the address of the Department you are affiliated with,
• PACS codes,
• abstract explaining succinctly the aim of the project
• results,
• conclusion.

This is illustrated by an example submitted by a one of the former (enthusiastic) undergraduate students in the course. In order to meet standards of research articles in a typical Physics Journal, it is mandatory for PHYS660 students to use LaTeX (to facilitate meeting this demand use REVTeX4 course template) and highly recommended for PHYS460 students.

In Project 5, which deals with quite demanding real time Quantum Tunneling problems, research teams will be established (consisting of an undergraduate and a graduate student) to collaborate on the problem. Each team will present a poster during a Poster Session which will also include peer reviewing.

Grading

Although grades are a bit obsolete concept when learning about science through experience and by asking questions, at the end of the semester a letter grade will have to be assigned. Here is a guideline for your final grade, as a percentage of the total number of points: 86-100, some type of A; 73-85, some type of B; 61-72 some type of C, 51-60 some type of D; 50 and below is F. These numbers may be lowered, depending upon numerous factors, but will not be raised (i.e., if you have an 86 average you are assured of at least an A-). The course grades are not curved.

• Here is a guideline for your final letter grade, as a percentage of the total number of points:
  • 93 - 100 -> A
  • 90 - 92 -> A-
  • 85 - 89 -> B+
  • 80 - 84 -> B
  • 75 - 79 -> B-
  • 70 - 74 -> C+
  • 65 - 69 -> C
  • 60 - 64 -> C-
  • 57 - 59 -> D+
  • 53 - 56 -> D
  • 50 - 52 -> D-
  • < 50 -> F

These numbers may be lowered, depending upon numerous factors, but will not be raised (i.e., if you have 90 average you are assured of at least an A-). The course grades are not curved.

• Grading of overdue reports: Reports submitted after the deadline will incur a penalty of 5 points for each 24 hour period. After eight days, the maximum possible grade is set at 60 points.

Study Guides

• Main Textbook:
  • N. Giordano and H. Nakanishi: Computational Physics (2nd edition, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2005).

• Numerical Algorithms:
  • C. Moler, Numerical Computing with Matlab (SIAM, Philadelphia, 2004).
  • W. H. Press, S. A. Teukolsky, W. T. Vetterling, and B. P. Flannery: Numerical Recipes: The Art of Scientific Computing (CUP, Cambridge, 2007).

• Supplementary Material:
  • H. Gould, J. Tobochnik, and W. Christian: An Introduction to Computer Simulation Methods: Application to Physical Systems (3nd edition, Adison-Wesley, Reading, 2006).
  • Selected articles from American Journal of Physics.

• Advanced topics for PHYS660 students:
  • J. Thijssen, Computational Physics (CUP, Cambridge, 2007).
  • K. Varga and J. A. Driscoll, Computational Nanoscience (CUP, Cambridge, 2011).
  • W. Krauth, Statistical Mechanics: Algorithms and Computations (OUP, Oxford, 2006).
  • P. de Forcrand and P. Werner, Computational Quantum Physics (course at ETH, Zurich).