Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

We study whether all stationary solutions of 2D Euler equation must be radially symmetric, if the vorticity is compactly supported or has some decay at infinity. Our main results are the following:

(1) On the one hand, we are able to show that for any non-negative smooth stationary vorticity  that is compactly supported (or has certain decay as |x|->infty), it must be radially symmetric up to a translation. 

(2) On the other hand, if we allow vorticity to change sign, then by applying bifurcation arguments to sign-changing radial patches, we are able to show that there exists a compactly-supported, sign-changing smooth stationary vorticity that is non-radial.

We have also obtained some symmetry results for uniformly-rotating solutions for 2D Euler equation, as well as stationary/rotating solutions for the SQG equation. The symmetry results are mainly obtained by calculus of variations and elliptic equation techniques. This is a joint work with Javier Gomez-Serrano, Jia Shi and Yao Yao. 

Mathapalooza! is simultaneously a Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival and an event of the Atlanta Science Festival. There will be puzzles and games, a magic show by Matt Baker, mathematically themed courtroom skits by GT Club Math, a presentation about math and dance by Manuela Manetta, a presentation about math and music by David Borthwick, and a gallery of mathematical art curated by Elisabetta Matsumoto. It is free, and we anticipate engaging hundreds of members of the public in the wonders of mathematics. More info at https://mathematics-in-motion.org/about/Be there or B^2 !

Understanding the structure of RNA is a problem of significant interest to biochemists. Thermodynamic energy functions are often key to this pursuit, but it is well-established that these energy functions do not perform well when applied to longer RNA sequences. This work specifically investigates the branching properties of RNA secondary structures, viewed as plane trees. By employing Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques, we sample from the probability distributions determined by these thermodynamic energy functions. We also investigate some of the challenges in employing Markov chain Monte Carlo, in particular the existence of local energy minima in transition graphs. This talk will give background, share preliminary results, and discuss future avenues of investigation.

Thesis defense: Advisors: Turgay Uzer and Cristel Chandre Summary: Thirty years after the demonstration of the production of high laser harmonics through nonlinear laser-gas interaction, high harmonic generation (HHG) is being used to probe molecular dynamics in real time and is realizing its technological potential as a tabletop source of attosecond pulses in the XUV to soft X-ray range. Despite experimental progress, theoretical efforts have been stymied by the excessive computational cost of first-principles simulations and the difficulty of systematically deriving reduced models for the non-perturbative, multiscale interaction of an intense laser pulse with a macroscopic gas of atoms. In this thesis, we investigate first-principles reduced models for HHG using classical mechanics. On the microscopic level, we examine the recollision process---the laser-driven collision of an ionized electron with its parent ion---that drives HHG. Using nonlinear dynamics, we elucidate the indispensable role played by the ionic potential during recollisions in the strong-field limit. On the macroscopic level, we show that the intense laser-gas interaction can be cast as a classical field theory. Borrowing a technique from plasma physics, we systematically derive a hierarchy of reduced Hamiltonian models for the self-consistent interaction between the laser and the atoms during pulse propagation. The reduced models can accommodate either classical or quantum electron dynamics, and in both cases, simulations over experimentally-relevant propagation distances are feasible. We build a classical model based on these simulations which agrees quantitatively with the quantum model for the propagation of the dominant components of the laser field. Subsequently, we use the classical model to trace the coherent buildup of harmonic radiation to its origin in phase space. In a simplified geometry, we show that the anomalously high frequency radiation seen in simulations results from the delicate interplay between electron trapping and higher energy recollisions brought on by propagation effects.