Graduate Student / Postdoc Seminar

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Rare Transitions in Noisy Heteroclinic Networks

Speaker: Yuri Bakhtin, Courant Institute, New York University

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Friday, March 27, 2026, 1 p.m.

Synopsis:

After a brief introduction to small noisy perturbations of dynamical systems in general, I will concentrate on systems with heteroclinic networks, where multiple saddle points are connected to each other by orbits. For such systems, I will describe the typical behavior, quantify the rare transitions, and explain the emerging metastability picture. In comparison with the classical Freidlin-Wentzell theory, the hierarchy of accessibility clusters is defined via a hierarchy of much shorter transition times. This is joint work with Hong-Bin Chen and Zsolt Pajor-Gyulai. If time permits, I will talk about an application to decision statistics in psychology (joint work with Josh Correll).