Algorithmic aspects of multicanonical simulations

Abstract

Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of many systems, in particular those with conflicting constraints, can be considerably speeded up by using multicanonical or related methods. Some of these approaches sample with a-priori unknown weight factors. After introducing the concept, I shall focus on two aspects: (i) Opinions about the optimal choice of weight factors. (ii) Methods to get weight factor estimates, with emphasize on a multicanonical recursion.

Comments: 4 pages latex, Slightly expanded contribution to the LAT97 Edinburgh conference, to appear in the proceedings, Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.)