Scale-Hopping in Computer Simulations of Polymers # #The author of this review has agreed to write a short follow-up to this article that will incorporate information provided by the readers. If you have comments, additions, clarifications, or remarks concerning this article, please send them to the author within 3 months after this article has appeared. The author will review them and collect them into a feedback article, which will appear in one of the coming issues of Soft Materials.

Polymer simulations can be performed at many different length scales by using techniques ranging from quantum chemistry to finite element via a hierarchy of coarser and coarser particle or field-based methods. Recent years have seen many efforts to connect simulations at different levels to 1) indirectly predict large-scale properties starting from fundamental models and 2) to accelerate the equilibration at more fundamental levels via the detour of coarse-grained levels. It is the purpose of the present synopsis to review some of the recent methodological advances concerning the systematic and, where available, automatic bridging between different levels of polymer simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]