Energy Landscapes 2013: Structure, Dynamics and Exploration Algorithms

Dear colleagues,

We would like to invite you to our workshop on 'Energy Landscapes: Structure, Dynamics and Exploration Algorithms' at the Telluride Science Research Center for the period July 15th - July 19th 2013.

The workshop will be devoted to a discussion of systems with multi-minima energy landscapes, such as glasses, crystalline solids, proteins, clusters, large molecules, and combinatorial optimization problems. Of particular interest is a characterization of the landscape geometry ('how does it look like'), of the system dynamics ('what happens on the landscape') and of the relation between the two. This is complemented with the presentation of simulation, optimization and exploration methods for multi-minima systems, and their applications, but any contribution in the area of energy landscapes is welcome, of course.

As in the past, the workshop will endeavour to give everyone an opportunity to share his/her current work or important issues of concern in the area of energy landscapes to the participants. It will allow lots of time for the crucial extensive and intensive but constructive quizzing of the speaker by the audience. This also allows the participants to exchange ideas in detail, and experience has shown that many collaborations have resulted from these meetings. Regarding the specific topics, this workshop has always attempted to bring people from different communities together; thus every contribution is welcome that addresses issues in the field of complex energy landscapes - ranging from abstract models, questions of e.g. phase transitions in physics, chemistry or biology that proceed in finite time, residence times in metastable states and relaxation or aging phenomena on multiminima energy landscapes, issues in optimal control, simulation of time evolution of complex systems, and global optimization problems, over algorithm development to system specific applications in e.g. molecules (clusters, proteins, etc.) or solids (crystals, glasses, spin glasses, ionic conductors, etc.).

In contrast to past workshops, we have scheduled "formally" only a one-week workshop instead of the usual two-week meeting, because of a closely related workshop, Karl Heinz Hoffmann's and Peter Salamon's workshop (July 21st - July 28th) on "Optimization of thermodynamic systems", which a number of the participants of the landscape workshop are planning to attend (and conversely). Thus for those among you who are interested in additional discussions and perhaps the development of research projects beyond the time available during the first week, we recommend joining us for the second week, too.

Hoping to see you in Telluride,

with best greetings,

Karl Heinz Hoffmann and Christian Schön