The course represents the natural continuation of the courses on Elementary Statistical Mechanics taught in BSc programs, that usually discuss the general principles on which Statistical Mechanics is based and the most elementary applications (typically ideal-gas systems), as these are the only ones that can be studied analytically. Analytic studies of more complex systems are not feasible, hence one must resort to numerical methods.
This the subject of the course: to present the conceptual foundations of the different methods that are presently used in the study of statistical systems. The emphasis is on the methods rather than on the systems. Hence the course is suitable for people interested in simulations of lattice QCD, spin systems, spin glasses and molecular systems.