Hybrid Particle-Continuum Methods in Computational Materials Physics - Proceedings

The research groups of the John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC) regularly conduct workshops on leading-edge subjects in computational physics. In this tradition, the Computational Materials Physics Group organized a workshop on Hybrid Particle-Continuum Methods jointly with the Institute of Advanced Simulation on March 4–7, 2013 at the Forschungszentrum Jülich. The goal of the workshop was to foster the exchange of ideas between the communities working on complex fluids and complex solids. Particular emphasis was placed on continuum-mediated interactions between particles as well as on the adaptive and non-adaptive coupling between particle-based and continuum-based descriptions of materials. This proceedings volume collects selected invited and contributed presentations of the workshop. It covers subjects from modelling of hydrodynamic interactions between particles in complex fluids or environments, through coarse-grained descriptions of biological systems, to the coupling of atomically represented regions with various continuum-based theories for fluids and solids. Special aspects are long-time-scale properties of systems with slow collective dynamics, the development of efficient adaptive resolution algorithms, and the coupling of quantum-mechanically treated regions with continuum descriptions. In the preparation of the workshop, the editors stimulated the authors of the proceedings to provide a pedagogical introduction to their field of expertise and to the methods used in addition to the overview of their results. We hope that readers of this volume agree that this goal has been achieved. Besides the editors, Martina Kamps, Britta Hoßfeld, and Elke Bielitza at Forschungszentrum Jülich as well as Erik Luijten (Northwestern University) helped in organizing the workshop