Machta, Jon

Title: Parallel Tempering and Population Annealing for Rough Free Energy Landscapes
Author: Jon Machta
Affiliation: University of Massachusetts Amherst and Santa Fe Institute, USA
Abstract:
I will describe parallel tempering (replica exchange Monte Carlo) and discuss its efficiency for various free energy landscapes. For some simple model free energy landscapes, the performance of parallel tempering can be analyzed and the results highlight strengths and weaknesses of the method. I will also discuss population annealing, a related algorithm for glassy systems introduced by Iba and Hukushima, and contrast it to parallel tempering. Applications to spin glasses will be discussed.