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Colloquium: Alexander Watson, Duke University, Wave-packet dynamics in locally periodic media

Event Type: 
Colloquium
Speaker: 
Alexander Watson, Duke University
Event Date: 
Thursday, October 25, 2018 -
3:30pm to 4:30pm
Location: 
SMLC 356
Audience: 
General PublicFaculty/StaffStudentsAlumni/Friends
Sponsor/s: 
Terry Loring

Event Description: 

Abstract: We study the dynamics of wave-packet solutions of Schr\”{o}dinger’s equation and 
Maxwell’s equations in media with a local periodic structure which varies adiabatically
(over many periods of the periodic lattice) across the medium. We focus in particular on
the case where symmetries of the periodic structure lead to degeneracies in the Bloch band
dispersion surface. We derive systematically and rigorously the `anomalous velocity’ of 
wave-packets due to the Bloch band’s Berry curvature, and the dynamics of a wave-packet 
incident on a Bloch band degeneracy in one spatial dimension. Joint work with 

Michael Weinstein and Jianfeng Lu.

Event Contact

Contact Name: Terry Loring

Contact Email: tloring@unm.edu