Luca D'Alessio - Preliminary Oral Exam

When: June 2, 2011 (Thu), 02:00PM to 03:00PM (add to my calendar)
Location: SCI 328

This event is part of the Preliminary Oral Exam.

Title: "Universal Energy Fluctuations in Thermally Isolated Driven Systems"

Examining Committee:  Anatoli Polkovnikov, Claudio Chamon, Sid Redner, Robert Carey

Abstract:
Understanding equilibrium and non-equilibrium properties of thermally
isolated systems has become a forefront of research due to experimental
developments over the past decade, particularly in cold atom systems,
trapped ions, and nuclear spins. In these systems the coupling to external
dissipative degrees of freedom is strongly suppressed and irrelevant on
accessible time scales. I will describe the energy distribution of a
thermally isolated system which is repeatedly driven out-of-equilibrium. I
will show that two qualitatively different regimes can be realized with a
universal continuous transition between them as a function of the driving
parameters. This transition bears many similarities with equilibrium
second order phase transitions.

Best wishes to Luca!!