Analysis Seminar

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Topological and Dynamic Phase Transitions in Statistical Physics

Speaker: Shouhong Wang, TBA

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Thursday, March 14, 2019, 11 a.m.

Synopsis:

Recently we have developed a dynamic transition theory, leading to a
general principle that all dynamic transitions for dissipative systems can
be classified into three categories: continuous, catastrophic and random.
We use the dynamic transition theory to study equilibrium phase transition
in statistical physics. First we show that  there exist only first, second
and third order transitions. Second, we demonstrate that the discrepancy
for critical exponents between theories and the experiments is due to
fluctuations.

The second part of the talk is on topological phase transitions.
Intuitively speaking, topological phase transition studies the change of
the topological structure in the physical space as certain system
parameter crosses a critical threshold. In this part of the talk, we focus
on two typical examples of topological phase transitions: quantum phase
transition and boundary-layer separation of incompressible fluid flows.
This is joint work with Tian Ma.