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.