Seminars Sorted by Series

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Jan
28
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Large Deviations of the Current in Non-Equilibrium Systems
Thierry Bodineau
11:15am|S-101

Using the hydrodynamic limit theory, we will review the large deviations of the heat current through a diffusive system maintained off equilibrium by two heat baths at unequal temperatures. We will also discuss a toy model for dissipative dynamics...

Feb
04
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

A Statistical Mechanics Model of Random Matrices
Tom Spencer
11:15am|S-101

Spectral prosperities of random matrices can be described in terms of correlations of a statistical mechanics model with hyperbolic symmetry. This talk will describe and analyze a simpler version of this model which is closely related to random walk...

Feb
13
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

New Rigorous Results About the Classical Microcanonical Ensemble
Michael Kiessling
2:00pm|S-101

Rigorous results about the classical microcanonical ensemble have so far been based on the regularization of the microcanonical measure, with the exception of the ideal gas. In this talk I explain that the regularization is not needed for...

Feb
13
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Classical Inequalities for the Boltzmann Collision Operator with Applications to the Inhomogeneous Cauchy Boltzmann Problem
4:00pm|S-101

We study the integrability properties of the gain part of the Boltzmann collision operator using radial symmetrization techniques from harmonic analysis to show Young's inequality for the case of hard potentials and the Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev...

Feb
20
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Non-Spectral Poles in Asymptotically Hyperbolic Scattering
Robin Graham
4:00pm|S-101

This talk will discuss non-spectral poles of the scattering operator arising in problems with regular singular point behavior at infinity. The phenomenon will be exhibited in a one-dimensional model example involving the Yukawa potential on a half...

Feb
27
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

On Lyapunov exponents of Green's function for diffusions and random walks in a random potential
4:00pm|S-101

The talk will consist of two parts. At first, we shall review connections between Lyapunov exponents, large deviations for diffusions in random media, and the homogenization problem for some stochastic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations. The second...

Mar
04
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Controlled Concentration and Long time Behavior of the Critical Mass Keller-Segel Equation.
Eric Carlen
11:15am|S-101

The Keller-Segal equation exhibits a competition between diffusion and effects leading to concentration, and depending on whether the total mass is above or below a critical value, one or the other wins. We examine the long time behavior for...

Mar
11
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Smoothing Effects for the Full Landau Equation
Robert Strain
11:15am|S-101

The Balescu-Lenard equation from kinetic theory--which was earlier derived in a more complicated form by Bogoliubov--is widely considered to include a highly accurate correction to Landau’s fundamental model for grazing collisions. So far this...

Mar
25
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Infinite/Finite Time Blow-Up for Aggregation Equations in Mathematical Biology
Jose Carrillo
11:15am|S-101

In this talk I will review two recent works in collaboration with A. Bertozzi and T. Laurent and with M. DiFrancesco, A. Figalli, T. Laurent and D. Slepcev in which we prove infinite/finite time blow-up for generic initial data in several models...

Mar
25
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Stability Problems for Crystals, I
Alessio Figalli
2:00pm|S-101

The equilibrium shape of a crystal is determined by the minimization under a volume constraint of its free energy, consisting of an anisotropic interfacial surface energy plus a bulk potential energy. In the absence of the potential term, the...

Apr
01
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Mass Renormalization in Non-Relativistic Quantum Electrodynamics
Volker Bach
11:30am|S-101

In this talk I review recent results on the infrared mass renormalization in non-relativistic quantum electrodynamics (non-relativistic particle system interacting with quantized electro-magnetic field). The review will also include the description...

Apr
08
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Low-degree Landau-Lifshitz and Schroedinger Maps
Stephen Gustafson
4:00pm|S-101

The Schroedinger (and Landau-Lifshitz) map equations are a basic model in ferromagnetism, and a natural geometric (hence nonlinear) version of the Schroedinger (and Schroedinger-heat) equation. While there has been recent progress on the question of...

Apr
10
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Renormalization Group Methods
Jon Dimock
4:00pm|S-101

This talk is about renormalization group methods for quantum field theory and classical statistical mechanics. The renormalization group is not a group but a technique for reducing infinite dimensional integrals with strong correlations to a...

Apr
15
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Rigidity and Flexibility of $C^{1,\alpha}$ Isometric Embeddings
11:30am|S-101

A corollary of a celebrated theorem of Nash and Kuiper is the existence of $C^1$ isometric embeddings of the standard 2-sphere in arbitrarily small balls of the euclidean 3-d space. On the contrary, the image of $C^2$ isometric embeddings are all...

Apr
15
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Spectral Dynamics and Critical Thresholds in Nonlinear Convective Equations
Eitan Tadmor
4:00pm|S-101

We discuss the global regularity vs. finite time breakdown in nonlinear convection driven by different models of forcing. Finite time breakdown depends on whether the initial configuration crosses intrinsic, O(1) critical thresholds (CT). Our...

Apr
22
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Soliton Dynamics and Energy Equipartition in Inhomogeneous Media
4:00pm|S-101

We discuss the dynamics of soliton-like solutions of the nonlinear Schroedinger-Gross Pitaevskii equation. After a review of basic results, we outline recent work on the large time energy distribution in multimoded systems and on gap-solitons...

Apr
24
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Decoherence and Disentanglement
Marco Merkli
11:30am|S-101

We consider an open quantum system consisting of two spins 1/2 (qubits) interacting with thermal reservoirs (environments). Each spin is coupled to its own local reservoir, and the spins are coupled to a common third reservoir (collective coupling)...

Apr
30
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Scaling Relations for Ising-Like Models of Statistical Mechanics
11:30am|S-101

In the '70s, Kadanoff, Luther and Peschel conjectured universal formulas among the critical indices of certain Ising-like, 2 dimensional, statistical models. We present a proof of some of these formulas.

May
27
2009

Mathematical Physics Seminar

The Critical Temperature of Dilute Bose Gases
Robert Seiringer
4:30pm

The effect of interparticle interactions on the critical temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation has been a controversial issue in the physics literature. Various approximation schemes lead to different conclusions, concerning both the sign and...

Feb
23
2022

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Log-Sobolev inequality for near critical Ising and continuum $\varphi^4$ measures
4:30pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

I will present results on Glauber dynamics of Ising models and continuum
$\varphi^4$ measures.

For ferromagnetic Ising models, we show that the log-Sobolev constant satisfies a simple bound expressed only in terms of the susceptibility of the model...

Mar
02
2022

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Bounds on Maass spectra from holomorphic forms
4:30pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

I will discuss new constraints on the spectra of Maass forms on compact hyperbolic 2-orbifolds. The constraints arise from integrals of products of four functions in discrete series representations realized in $L^2(\Gamma\backslash G)$, where $...

Mar
09
2022

Mathematical Physics Seminar

An Introduction to Grassmann integrals with applications to statistical mechanics.
4:30pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

Grassmann integrals are integrals over functions on an exterior algebra. In the "Gaussian" case they can be expressed as a determinant or Pfaffian.

These integral arise in two dimensional Ising models and random tilings or dimers. 

We review the...

Mar
30
2022

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Large Genus Asymptotics in Flat Surfaces and Hyperbolic Geodesics
4:30pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

In this talk we will describe the behaviors of flat surfaces and geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces, as their genera tend to infinity. We first discuss enumerative results that count the number of such surfaces or geodesics (which can be viewed as...

Apr
13
2022

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Invariant Gibbs measures for the cubic nonlinear wave equation
4:30pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

In this talk, we prove the invariance of the Gibbs measure for the three-dimensional cubic nonlinear wave equation, which is also known as the hyperbolic $\Phi ^{4} _{3}$-model.

In the first half of this talk, we illustrate our main objects and...

Apr
20
2022

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Towards Morse theory of dispersion relations
Gregory Berkolaiko
11:00am|Simonyi 101 and Remote Access

The question of optimizing an eigenvalue of a family of self-adjoint operators that depends on a set of parameters arises in diverse areas of mathematical physics.  Among the particular motivations for this talk are the Floquet-Bloch decomposition...

May
04
2022

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Modular bootstrap, Segal's axioms and resolution of Liouville conformal field theory
Rémi Rhodes; Vincent Vargas
4:00pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

Liouville field theory was introduced by Polyakov in the eighties in the context of string theory. Liouville theory appeared there under the form of a 2D Feynman path integral, which can be thought of as a measure (or expectation value) over the...

Mathematics Seminar

Jan
09
2019

Mathematics Seminar

Distribution of the integral points on quadrics
2:00pm|Simonyi Hall 101

Motivated by questions in computer science, we consider the problem of approximating local points (real or p-adic points) on the unit sphere S^d optimally by the projection of the integral points lying on R*S^d, where R^2 is an integer. We present...

Jan
09
2019

Mathematics Seminar

The Sup-norm Problem on $S^3$
3:30pm|Simonyi Hall 101

We consider the problem of bounding the sup-norm of $L^2$-normalised Hecke-Laplace eigenforms $\phi_j$ on $S^3$. Along the way, we overcome the difficulty of possibly small eigenvalues in the Iwaniec-Sarnak amplifier by taking a whole space of...

Jan
09
2019

Mathematics Seminar

Ramanujan complexes and golden gates in PU(3).
4:30pm|Simonyi Hall 101

In their seminal works from the 80's, Lubotzky, Phillips and Sarnak proved the following two results: (i) An explicit construction of Ramanujan regular graphs. (ii) An explicit method of placing points on the sphere uniformly equidistributed. These...

Members' Colloquium

Mar
22
2021

Members' Colloquium

String topology and the intersection product
2:00pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

String topology, as introduced by Chas and Sullivan 20 years ago, is a product structure on the free loop space of a manifold that lifts the classical intersection product from the manifold to its loop space. I’ll explain how both a product and a...

Apr
05
2021

Members' Colloquium

The Earth's Dynamo: a Mathematical Model
2:00pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

Earlier this semester we heard a fascinating talk by James Stone describing how the equations of compressible magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) can help us understand the Cosmos. Today we will return to Earth and describe a mathematical model, derived from...

Apr
12
2021

Members' Colloquium

Character bounds for finite simple groups
2:00pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

Given the current knowledge of complex representations of finite simple groups, obtaining good upper bounds for their characters values is still a difficult problem, a satisfactory solution of which would have significant implications in a number of...

Oct
11
2021

Members' Colloquium

What is the h-principle?
2:00pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

The honest answer to the question is that I actually do not know. I will therefore rather talk about several famous examples that are widely called "h-principle results" and try to explain some of the ideas behind the ones I am most familiar with.

Oct
18
2021

Members' Colloquium

Higher order Fourier analysis and solving equations in dense sets
2:00pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

Several of the most important problems in combinatorial number theory ask for the size of the largest subset of some abelian group or interval of integers lacking points in some arithmetic configuration. One example of such a question is "What is...

Oct
25
2021

Members' Colloquium

A (slightly less) brief look into the restricted 3-body problem
2:00pm|Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access

Despite the fact that the 3-body problem is an ancient conundrum that goes back to Newton, it is remarkably poorly understood, and is still a benchmark for modern developments. In this talk, I will give a (very) biased account of this classical...