Research

Colloquia — Summer 2017

Friday, June 16, 2017

Title: Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics of the Laplacian growth
Speaker: Mark Mineev-Weinstein, Institute for Theoretical Physics
Natal, Brazil
Time: 3:00pm‐4:00pm
Place: CMC 108

Sponsor: Razvan Teodorescu

Abstract

The methods of equilibrium statistical thermodynamics are applied to Laplacian growth by using its remarkable connection with a random matrix theory. The Laplacian growth equation is obtained from the variation principle and describes adiabatic (quasi-static) thermodynamic processes in the two-dimensional Dyson gas. By using Einstein's theory of thermodynamic fluctuations we consider transitional probabilities between thermodynamic states, which are in a one-to-one correspondence with planar domains. Transitions between these domains are described by the stochastic Laplacian growth equation, while the transitional probabilities coincide with the free-particle propagator on the infinite dimensional complex manifold with the Kahler metric.