Monte Carlo Simulation
Gives properties via ensemble averaging
- No time integration
- Cannot measure dynamical properties
Employs stochastic methods to generate a (large) sample of members of an ensemble
- “random numbers” guide the selection of new samples
Permits great flexibility
- members of ensemble can be generated according to any convenient probability distribution…
- …and any given probability distribution can be sampled in many ways
- strategies developed to optimize quality of results
ergodicity — better sampling of all relevant regions of configuration space
variance minimization — better precision of results
MC “simulation” is the evaluation of statistical-mechanics integrals