# Volume II — Energy Landscapes & Optimization

The potential energy surface is the object on which all of molecular and materials
modelling plays out. This volume builds one explicitly for Lennard-Jones clusters,
explores its rugged structure of local minima, and develops the optimization
methods that find the deepest of them: local quasi-Newton relaxation, global
basin-hopping, and the order parameters that classify the structures found.

```{admonition} Source lectures
:class: note
This volume develops **Lecture 3** of *Molecular and Materials Modelling*
(FS 2023) — *optimization of Lennard-Jones clusters: the potential, energy
landscapes, geometry optimization, and Steinhardt order parameters*. Each notebook
repeats its specific lecture provenance in its overview; the full lecture map is in
`manifest.yml`.
```

```{tableofcontents}
```