When:
Thursday, January 28, 2016
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM CT
Where: Technological Institute, F160, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students
Contact:
Liz Lwanga
Group: Physics and Astronomy Complex Systems Seminars
Category: Academic
P&A Complex Systems Seminar
Featured Speaker
Mark Dykman
Professor of Physics
Michigan State University
Rare Events in Classical and Quantum Systems away from Thermal Equilibrium
Rare events such as escape from a potential well, spontaneous switching between coexisting states in hysteretic systems, or nucleation of a new phase play an important role in nature and technology. Such events result from large fluctuations away from the stable state of the system. Even though they happen at random, when they happen the system moves in a well-defined way. I will describe the corresponding dynamics and how it is observed. This dynamics has qualitatively new features in systems away from thermal equilibrium. I will describe the related generic singularities in classical nonequilibrium systems. I will also describe the effect of quantum activation where quantum fluctuations lead to effective overbarrier transitions. This effect has no analogs in systems in thermal equilibrium. In particular, it plays an important role in circuit and cavity quantum electrodynamics. I will discuss the scaling behavior of the transition rates and the relevant recent experiments in nano-mechanical and circuit QED systems.