The University of Arizona: Mathematics Colloquium – Extreme Diffusion or Was Einstein Wrong About Diffusion?

Abstract: In a system of many particles diffusing in a common environment, the first few particles often have outsized importance. How do they behave and what does that behavior tell us about the environment in which they have evolved? We will approach these problems by studying random walks in random environments and utilizing a connection with the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang stochastic PDE and universality class. I will describe recent work which uncovers new power-laws beyond those of Einstein’s theory of diffusion and introduces the Extreme Diffusion Coefficient that captures new microscopic information about the environment. This is based on works of several authors including Guillaume Barraquand, Eric Corwin, Jacob Haas, Pierre Le Doussal, Hindy Drillick, Sayan Das, Shalin Parekh and me.

Colloquium Tea will be served in the Math Commons Room from 3:30-4:00