The Many Faces of Discreteness: From Granular Crystals and Layered Optical Media to Bose-Einstein Condensates and Beyond

Hey all,

The last talk of the semester will be given this Wednesday from 6-7 in LGRT 1634 by Panos Kevrekidis. Come join us for pizza, soda, and math!
Abstract: We’ll touch on different aspects of discrete systems, as they arise in a variety of recent experiments pertinent to physical applications. We will start from the “traditional” spatial discreteness and how it affects elastic traveling waves in so-called acoustic or granular crystals. We will continue with a form of discreteness (or, more accurately, periodicity) in the evolution variable for pulses passing through a so-called layered optical medium and we will end with an example where the discrete number of components plays a crucial role in the dynamics of two coupled Bose-Einstein
condensates in atomic physics. In each example, we will present the relevant dynamical models and we will attempt to mesh the mathematical analysis and numerical computations with experimental results.