Aimed at a broad audience, this book presents the basic theory of Hamiltonian mechanics and stochastic differential equations, as well as topics including symplectic numerical methods, the handling of constraints and rigid bodies, the efficient treatment of Langevin dynamics, thermostats to control the molecular ensemble, multiple time-stepping, and the dissipative particle dynamics method.
Benedict Leimkuhler has worked extensively for more than two decades on the study of molecular dynamics algorithms. He is the author of research publications on constrained molecular dynamics, temperature controls, stochastic molecular dynamics methods, quantum methods, and advanced integration strategies (multiple time-stepping, adaptive methods). He currently holds the Chair of Applied Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications, and is on the editorial boards of four journals.
Charles Matthews obtained his PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Edinburgh, working in the area of numerical methods for stochastic differential equations. He has published research in both chemical physics and mathematics journals on discretization problems in molecular dynamics. He currently is a research staff member in the Department of Statistics at the University of Chicago, investigating sampling methodologies for molecular simulation and the modelling of power networks.