## Seminars and Colloquia by Series

Friday, April 27, 2018 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles 202 , Brian Kennedy , School of Physics, Georgia Tech , Organizer: Michael Loss
Electrons possess both spin and charge. In one dimension, quantum theory predicts that systems of interacting electrons may behave as though their charge and spin are transported at different speeds.We discuss examples of how  such many-particle effects may be simulated using neutral atoms and radiation fields. Joint work with Xiao-Feng Shi
Friday, April 6, 2018 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles Room 202 , Günter Stolz , University of Alabama, Birmingham , Organizer: Michael Loss
Localization properties of quantum many-body systems have been a very active subject in theoretical physics in the most recent decade. At the same time, finding rigorous approaches to understanding many-body localization remains a wide open challenge. We will report on some recent progress obtained for the case of quantum spin chains, where joint work with A. Elgart and A. Klein has provided a proof of several manifestations of MBL for the droplet spectrum of the disordered XXZ chain.
Friday, March 30, 2018 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles 202 , Rui Han , IAS , Organizer: Michael Loss
TBA
Friday, March 30, 2018 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles 202 , Rui Han , Institute for Advanced Study , Organizer: Michael Loss
This talk will be focused on the large deviation theory (LDT) for Schr\"odinger cocycles over a quasi-periodic or skew-shift base. We will also talk about its connection to positivity and regularity of the Lyapunov exponent, as well as localization. We will also discuss some open problems of the skew-shift model.
Friday, March 16, 2018 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles 202 , Forrest T. Kieffer , School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech , Organizer: Michael Loss
Consider a relativistic electron interacting with a nucleus of nuclear charge Z and coupled to its self-generated electromagnetic field. The resulting system of equations describing the time evolution of this electron and its corresponding vector potential are known as the Maxwell-Dirac-Coulomb (MDC) equations. We study the time local well-posedness of the MDC equations, and, under reasonable restrictions on the nuclear charge Z, we prove the existence of a unique local in time solution to these equations.
Friday, March 2, 2018 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles 202 , Predrag Cvitanovic , School of Physics, Georgia Tech , Organizer: Michael Loss
Recent advances in fluid dynamics reveal that the recurrent flows observed in moderate Reynolds number turbulence result from close passes to unstable invariant solutions of Navier-Stokes equations. By now hundreds of such solutions been computed for a variety of flow geometries, but always confined to small computational domains (minimal cells).Pipe, channel and plane flows, however, are flows on infinite spatial domains. We propose to recast the Navier-Stokes equations as a space-time theory, with the unstable invariant solutions now being the space-time tori (and not the 1-dimensional periodic orbits of the classical periodic orbit theory). The symbolic dynamics is likewise higher-dimensional (rather than a single temporal string of symbols). In this theory there is no time, there is only a repertoire of admissible spatiotemporal patterns.We illustrate the strategy by solving a very simple classical field theory on a lattice modelling many-particle quantum chaos, adiscretized screened Poisson equation, or the spatiotemporal cat.'' No actual cats, graduate or undergraduate, have showninterest in, or were harmed during this research.
Friday, February 16, 2018 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles 202 , Bharath Hebbe Madhusudhana , School of Physics, Georgia Tech , Organizer: Michael Loss
The expectation values of the first and second moments of the quantum mechanical spin operator can be used to define a spin vector and spin fluctuation tensor, respectively. The former is a vector inside the unit ball in three space, while the latter is represented by an ellipsoid in three space. They are both experimentally accessible in many physical systems. By considering transport of the spin vector along loops in the unit ball it is shown that the spin fluctuation tensor picks up geometric phase information. For the physically important case of spin one, the geometric phase is formulated in terms of an SO(3) operator. Loops defined in the unit ball fall into two classes: those which do not pass through the origin and those which pass through the origin. The former class of loops subtend a well defined solid angle at the origin while the latter do not and the corresponding geometric phase is non-Abelian. To deal with both classes, a notion of generalized solid angle is introduced, which helps to clarify the interpretation of the geometric phase information. The experimental systems that can be used to observe this geometric phase are also discussed.Link to arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.08564
Friday, February 9, 2018 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles 202 , Federico Bonetto , Georgia Tech , Organizer: Michael Loss
I'll report on a project, developed in collaboration with Michael Loss, to extend a very simple model of rarefied gas due to Mark Kac and use it to understand some basic issues of Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics.
Friday, January 26, 2018 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles 202 , Evans Harrell , Georgia Tech , , Organizer: Michael Loss
Quantum theory includes many well-developed bounds for wave-functions, which can cast light on where they can be localized and where they are largely excluded by the tunneling effect.  These include semiclassical estimates, especially the technique of Agmon, the use of "landscape functions," and some bounds from the theory of ordinary differential equations.  With A. Maltsev of Queen Mary University I have been studying how these estimates of wave functions can be adapted to quantum graphs, which are by definition networks of one-dimensional Schrödinger equations joined at vertices.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - 13:00 , Location: Skiles 006 , Ian Jauslin , IAS, Princeton , , Organizer: Federico Bonetto
In 1979, O. Heilmann and E.H. Lieb introduced an interacting dimer model with the goal of proving the emergence of a nematic liquid crystal phase in it. In such a phase, dimers spontaneously align, but there is no long range translational order. Heilmann and Lieb proved that dimers do, indeed, align, and conjectured that there is no translational order. I will discuss a recent proof of this conjecture. This is joint work with Elliott H. Lieb.