Energy Landscapes 2007

Dear friends,

We would like to invite you, and your post-docs and students, of course, to participate in the 2007 energy landscape workshop in Petritoli (Italy) from 15. - 29. July 2007. The overall theme will be "Energy landscapes and finite time thermodynamics", but any contribution in the area of energy landscapes is welcome, of course. The theme touches upon questions of e.g. phase transitions in physics, chemistry and biology that proceed in finite time, optimization of (global) optimization algorithms, residence times in metastable states of (driven) multistate systems, relaxation on multiminima energy landscapes, or aging phenomena. As usual, the topics discussed will be adjusted according to the participants, of course. Everyone is encouraged to give a presentation, with
the ratio of presented material to explanations and discussions typically being somewhere between 1:1 and 1:3.

The workshop will take place this year in the town of Petritoli from 15. - 29. July 2007. Thus it will be right after the end of the StatPhys conference, which takes place in Italy during the second week of July. We have chosen the standard two-week-length for the workshop, in order to allow for intensive and detailed discussions both of the work presented and future directions that suggest
themselves throughout the workshop. Of course, you are also most welcome if you can only attend part of the workshop - your contributions are most appreciated.

Concerning the location, Petritoli is a small town in the Apennin-mountains along the northern Adriatic coast (see map below), where we will stay at the hotel in town (plus extension in an old palace building). We'll get pretty good rates for accommodation (see below), and we'll have a room in the town administration for our meetings, plus internet connection in the library. The
total number of rooms we will have is 21, but quite a number of the rooms are for sharing: 3 triple, 9 double and 9 single rooms; so e.g. students (or family members?) can be placed at a cheaper rate. All the rooms are equipped with TV and refrigerator.

The hotel prices consist of a basic rate per night which includes breakfast (single: 30 Euro, double: 46 Euro, Triple: 55 Euro) plus up to ten Euro for food (breakfast plus either lunch or dinner: +3 Euro, breakfast plus lunch plus dinner: +10 Euro). There are a number of restaurants in town, which serve various levels of Italian food.

In order to allow us to keep track of the number of participants and the available rooms, we suggest that the hotel reservations should be made by us. We will pass on your reservation (name(s) plus credit card number) to the hotel, and you will pay directly at the hotel when you arrive. In order to be able to pay for the costs of running the workshop, we need to charge a small fee of 25
Euro/week/person. Since we cannot process credit cards, we are going to use a special bank account with the physics department in Chemnitz, where we ask you to make a bank-to-bank transfer to (see below).

Please try to let us know early about your plans and how many people will attend from your group, since we can only count on the good rates for reasonably early booking. Note that Italy is a famous country for holidays (mountains right next to beaches), so you might consider bringing family members, too.

We are looking forward to seeing you in July

Best regards,

Christian Schön and Karl Heinz Hoffmann

Our e-mail-addresses:
     schoen(at)fkf.mpg.de
     hoffmann(at)physik.tu-chemnitz.de

Directions to Petritoli:
     By public transportation:
Fly into Ancona airport (in Falconara Marittima), take the train to Porto San Giorgio (48 - 60 minutes depending on   whether you switch trains in Ancona), and then either by cab to Petritoli (or by being picked up - we'll try to arrange a pick-up service if we know your arrival time)
     By car from the Ancona airport:
See mapquest output. Take A14 to Porto San Giorgio and then another 10 miles to Petritoli (about 1 hour drive)

For further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. One group member who hails from Italy will visit the town during the Easter holidays, to check out various details of the infrastructure; so any input and/or questions about what he should inquire there would be very useful.