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SUMMARY:Fluctuations and rare events: a variational approach
DTSTART:20160321T131500
DTEND:20160321T141500
DTSTAMP:20260406T064300Z
UID:14436f121d2d10789f7dac1f1ed774b4923bd570ff61bedff8f7a5a6
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Michele Parrinello\, Department of Chemistry and Applied
  Biosciences - ETH Zurich and Facoltà di Informatica - Istituto di Scienz
 e Computazionali - Lugano\nIn the study of materials as well as in many ot
 her fields of science\, computer simulations are pervasively used to solve
  difficult problems. However\, very often the systems complexity makes the
  application of computer simulations challenging. Many systems of interest
  exhibit long lived metastable states separated by high barriers. Under th
 ese\, frequently occurring circumstances\, only very rarely occurring fluc
 tuations allow the system to cross these barriers. This makes the transiti
 ons from one metastable state to another rare events. However\, although r
 are\, these events are crucial for a correct description of the system. Fo
 r instance\, phenomena such as nucleation\, chemical reactions\, and prote
 in folding are a few examples of rare events. Unfortunately\, the time sca
 le of standard simulation falls short of what needed and the simulation of
  rare events is one of the main challenges of present day simulations. Her
 e we present a novel approach to this problem\, based on the introduction 
 of a variational principle. We show how this variational principle can be 
 used to study complex problems and calculate transition rates of rare even
 ts. We underline that besides offering computational efficiency this new a
 pproach provides a qualitative new point of view that will have far reachi
 ng consequences in the future.\nBio: Michele Parrinello is currently Profe
 ssor at ETH Zurich\, and the Università della Svizzera Italiana Lugano\, 
 Switzerland. Together with Roberto Car he introduced the ab-initio molecul
 ar dynamics method\, which he is still developing and applying. This metho
 d\, which goes under the name of Car-Parrinello Method\, represents the be
 ginning of a new field and has dramatically influenced the field of electr
 onic structure calculations for solids\, liquids and molecules.  He is al
 so known for the Parrinello-Rahman method of molecular dynamics\, which pe
 rmits the study of crystalline phase transitions under constant pressure. 
 Lately he has developed metadynamics\, a new method for the study of rare 
 events and the calculation of free energies. Parrinello’s scientific int
 erests are strongly interdisciplinary and include the study of complex che
 mical reactions\, materials science and protein dynamics. \nProfessor Mic
 hele Parrinello was born in Messina\, Italy\, and obtained his degree in p
 hysics in 1968 from the University of Bologna\, Italy. Prior to moving to 
 Switzerland in 2001 he was Director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid 
 State Research in Stuttgart\, Germany\, and before that his positions incl
 uded research staff member at the IBM Research Laboratory in Zurich\, Swit
 zerland\, and full professor at SISSA\, Trieste\, Italy.  He has been a V
 isiting Scientist at many institutions.\nFor his research Parrinello has b
 een awarded numerous prizes\, including the 2001 American Chemical Society
  Award in Theoretical Chemistry\, the 1995 Rahman prize of the American Ph
 ysical Society\, the 1990 Hewlett-Packard Europhysics prize\, the 2009 Dir
 ac Medal and the 2011 Marcel Benoist Prize. He is a member of several acad
 emies among which the National Academy of Sciences\, the American Academy 
 for Arts and Sciences\, the British Royal Society and the Italian Accademi
 a Nazionale dei Lincei. He is author of more than 600 publications and his
  work is highly cited.
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STATUS:CONFIRMED
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