The Department is delighted to welcome Professor Edgar Knobloch (University of California, Berkeley) as a Visiting Nelder Fellow at Imperial College London in May 2016. Professor Knobloch will be delivering a series of five lectures on Dynamics, Patterns and Spatially Localised Structures.

Professor Knobloch will describe and illustrate recent progress in understanding the origin and properties of spatially localised structures formed in dissipative, pattern-forming systems such as the Swift-Hohenberg equation. Professor Knobloch will develop a mathematical and a physical explanation of homoclinic snaking of stationary states and related results for spatially localised temporal oscillations. He will use the theory to provide an understanding of similar phenomena observed in fluid dynamics (convection, shear flows), reaction-diffusion systems, nonlinear optics and crystallization.

Provisional schedule:

Lecture 1: Monday 23 May, 12:00-14:00, Huxley 130

Spatially localized structures in physics, chemistry, engineering and biology; the Swift-Hohenberg model

Lecture 2: Tuesday 24 May, 12:00-14:00, Huxley 130

The Swift-Hohenberg equation in one and two dimensions

Lecture 3: Wednesday 25 May, 12:00-14:00, Huxley 139

Oscillons

Lecture 4: Thursday 26 May, 12:00-14:00, Huxley 140

Spatially localized states in fluid mechanics

Lecture 5: Friday 27 May, 12:00-14:00, Huxley 130

Localized states in systems with a conserved quantity

Further information can be found on Professor Knobloch’s University of California, Berkeley webpage here.