Wang and Landau

[evanberkowitz]

Just writing this down someplace safe. Discussing with Alexei Bazavov today he mentioned to me the Wang and Landau algorithm (PRL) which is a method for constructing the density of states.

Quoting Wikipedia,

The major consequence is that this sampling distribution leads to a simulation where the energy barriers are invisible. This means that the algorithm visits all the accessible states (favorable and less favorable) much faster than a Metropolis algorithm.

but neither is it just random sampling. I have to say I do not yet understand it---I'd have to code up an example myself to really grok it. But it may be of interest!