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Variational method

About: Variational method is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 7154 publications have been published within this topic receiving 119573 citations.


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Book
01 Jan 1988
TL;DR: In this article, the Boltzmann Equation for rigid spheres is used to model the dynamics of a gas of rigid spheres in phase space and to solve the problem of flow and heat transfer in regions bounded by planes or cylinders.
Abstract: I. Basic Principles of The Kinetic Theory of Gases.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Probability.- 3. Phase space and Liouville's theorem.- 4. Hard spheres and rigid walls. Mean free path.- 5. Scattering of a volume element in phase space.- 6. Time averages, ergodic hypothesis and equilibrium states.- References.- II. The Boltzmann Equation.- 1. The problem of nonequilibrium states.- 2. Equations for the many particle distribution functions for a gas of rigid spheres.- 3. The Boltzmann equation for rigid spheres.- 4. Generalizations.- 5. Details of the collision term.- 6. Elementary properties of the collision operator. Collision invariants.- 7. Solution of the equation Q(f,f) = 0.- 8. Connection between the microscopic description and the macroscopic description of gas dynamics.- 9. Non-cutoff potentials and grazing collisions. Fokker-Planck equation.- 10. Model equations.- References.- III. Gas-Surface Interaction and the H-Theorem.- 1. Boundary conditions and the gas-surface interaction.- 2. Computation of scattering kernels.- 3. Reciprocity.- 4. A remarkable inequality.- 5. Maxwell's boundary conditions. Accommodation coefficients.- 6. Mathematical models for gas-surface interaction.- 7. Physical models for gas-surface interaction.- 8. Scattering of molecular beams.- 9. The H-theorem. Irreversibility.- 10. Equilibrium states and Maxwellian distributions.- References.- IV, Linear Transport.- 1. The linearized collision operator.- 2. The linearized Boltzmann equation.- 3. The linear Boltzmann equation. Neutron transport and radiative transfer.- 4. Uniqueness of the solution for initial and boundary value problems.- 5. Further investigation of the linearized collision term.- 6. The decay to equilibrium and the spectrum of the collision operator.- 7. Steady one-dimensional problems. Transport coefficients.- 8. The general case.- 9. Linearized kinetic models.- 10. The variational principle.- 11. Green's function.- 12. The integral equation approach.- References.- V. Small and Large Mean Free Paths.- 1. The Knudsen number.- 2. The Hilbert expansion.- 3. The Chapman-Enskog expansion.- 4. Criticism of the Chapman-Enskog method.- 5. Initial, boundary and shock layers.- 6. Further remarks on the Chapman-Enskog method and the computation of transport coefficients.- 7. Free molecule flow past a convex body.- 8. Free molecule flow in presence of nonconvex boundaries.- 9. Nearly free-molecule flows.- References.- VI. Analytical Solutions of Models.- 1. The method of elementary solutions.- 2. Splitting of a one-dimensional model equation.- 3. Elementary solutions of the simplest transport equation.- 4. Application of the general method to the Kramers and Milne problems.- 5. Application to the flow between parallel plates and the critical problem of a slab.- 6. Unsteady solutions of kinetic models with constant collision frequency.- 7. Analytical solutions of specific problems.- 8. More general models.- 9. Some special cases.- 10. Unsteady solutions of kinetic models with velocity dependent collision frequency.- 11. Analytic continuation.- 12. Sound propagation in monatomic gases.- 13. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional problems. Flow past solid bodies.- 14. Fluctuations and light scattering.- References.- VII. The Transition Regime.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Moment and discrete ordinate methods.- 3. The variational method.- 4. Monte Carlo methods.- 5. Problems of flow and heat transfer in regions bounded by planes or cylinders.- 6. Shock-wave structure.- 7. External flows.- 8. Expansion of a gas into a vacuum.- References.- VIII. Theorems on the Solutions of the Boltzmann Equation.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The space homogeneous case.- 3. Mollified and other modified versions of the Boltzmann equation.- 4. Nonstandard analysis approach to the Boltzmann equation.- 5. Local existence and validity of the Boltzmann equation.- 6. Global existence near equilibrium.- 7. Perturbations of vacuum.- 8. Homoenergetic solutions.- 9. Boundary value problems. The linearized and weakly nonlinear cases.- 10. Nonlinear boundary value problems.- 11. Concluding remarks.- References.- References.- Author Index.

2,987 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a discrete variable representation (DVR) is introduced for use as the L2 basis of the S-matrix version of the Kohn variational method for quantum reactive scattering.
Abstract: A novel discrete variable representation (DVR) is introduced for use as the L2 basis of the S‐matrix version of the Kohn variational method [Zhang, Chu, and Miller, J. Chem. Phys. 88, 6233 (1988)] for quantum reactive scattering. (It can also be readily used for quantum eigenvalue problems.) The primary novel feature is that this DVR gives an extremely simple kinetic energy matrix (the potential energy matrix is diagonal, as in all DVRs) which is in a sense ‘‘universal,’’ i.e., independent of any explicit reference to an underlying set of basis functions; it can, in fact, be derived as an infinite limit using different basis functions. An energy truncation procedure allows the DVR grid points to be adapted naturally to the shape of any given potential energy surface. Application to the benchmark collinear H+H2→H2+H reaction shows that convergence in the reaction probabilities is achieved with only about 15% more DVR grid points than the number of conventional basis functions used in previous S‐matrix Kohn...

1,575 citations

Proceedings Article
12 Dec 2011
TL;DR: This paper introduces an easy-to-implement stochastic variational method (or equivalently, minimum description length loss function) that can be applied to most neural networks and revisits several common regularisers from a variational perspective.
Abstract: Variational methods have been previously explored as a tractable approximation to Bayesian inference for neural networks. However the approaches proposed so far have only been applicable to a few simple network architectures. This paper introduces an easy-to-implement stochastic variational method (or equivalently, minimum description length loss function) that can be applied to most neural networks. Along the way it revisits several common regularisers from a variational perspective. It also provides a simple pruning heuristic that can both drastically reduce the number of network weights and lead to improved generalisation. Experimental results are provided for a hierarchical multidimensional recurrent neural network applied to the TIMIT speech corpus.

1,341 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The spectral element method as discussed by the authors is a high-order variational method for the spatial approximation of elastic-wave equations, which can be used to simulate elastic wave propagation in realistic geological structures involving complieated free surface topography and material interfaces for two- and three-dimensional geometries.
Abstract: We present the spectral element method to simulate elastic-wave propagation in realistic geological structures involving complieated free-surface topography and material interfaces for two- and three-dimensional geometries. The spectral element method introduced here is a high-order variational method for the spatial approximation of elastic-wave equations. The mass matrix is diagonal by construction in this method, which drastically reduces the computational cost and allows an efficient parallel implementation. Absorbing boundary conditions are introduced in variational form to simulate unbounded physical domains. The time discretization is based on an energy-momentum conserving scheme that can be put into a classical explicit-implicit predictor/multi-corrector format. Long-term energy conservation and stability properties are illustrated as well as the efficiency of the absorbing conditions. The associated Courant condition behaves as Δ tC < O ( nel−1/nd N −2), with nel the number of elements, nd the spatial dimension, and N the polynomial order. In practice, a spatial sampling of approximately 5 points per wavelength is found to be very accurate when working with a polynomial degree of N = 8. The accuracy of the method is shown by comparing the spectral element solution to analytical solutions of the classical two-dimensional (2D) problems of Lamb and Garvin. The flexibility of the method is then illustrated by studying more realistic 2D models involving realistic geometries and complex free-boundary conditions. Very accurate modeling of Rayleigh-wave propagation, surface diffraction, and Rayleigh-to-body-wave mode conversion associated with the free-surface curvature are obtained at low computational cost. The method is shown to provide an efficient tool to study the diffraction of elastic waves by three-dimensional (3D) surface topographies and the associated local effects on strong ground motion. Complex amplification patterns, both in space and time, are shown to occur even for a gentle hill topography. Extension to a heterogeneous hill structure is considered. The efficient implementation on parallel distributed memory architectures will allow to perform real-time visualization and interactive physical investigations of 3D amplification phenomena for seismic risk assessment.

1,183 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a variational principle is developed for the lowest energy of a system described by a path integral, which is applied to the problem of the interaction of an electron with a polarizable lattice, as idealized by Frohlich.
Abstract: A variational principle is developed for the lowest energy of a system described by a path integral. It is applied to the problem of the interaction of an electron with a polarizable lattice, as idealized by Frohlich. The motion of the electron, after the phonons of the lattice field are eliminated, is described as a path integral. The variational method applied to this gives an energy for all values of the coupling constant. It is at least as accurate as previously known results. The effective mass of the electron is also calculated, but the accuracy here is difficult to judge.

939 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20235
202230
2021157
2020179
2019196
2018208