Hamiltonian Instability and Applications: From Space Mission Design to Asteroid Dynamics
Time and place
1 PM on Tuesday, December 1st, 2015;
Marian Gidea (Yeshiva University)
Abstract
We will be looking at a variety of problems regarding energy transfer in chains of oscillators, low cost trajectories of spacecrafts, diffusion of asteroids, transition states in chemical reactions. The underlying systems can be modeled in terms of integrable Hamiltonians subject to small perturbations. We will analyze a fundamental phenomenon shared by these systems, namely that small perturbations can accumulate to large effects. We will explore explicit mechanisms through which this can happen, and provide applications.
