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Edgar Knobloch (University of California at Berkeley), Colloquium
November 3, 2016 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Tea at 3:30 in Phillips 330
Title: Spatial Localization in Forced Dissipative Systems
Abstract: Spatially localized structures arise frequently in nature. In this lecture I will describe a number of examples from different physical systems, followed by a discussion of the basic ideas behind nonlinear self-localization in forced dissipative systems that is responsible for their existence and of the phenomenon of homoclinic snaking that describes their properties in parameter space. I will illustrate these ideas using a simple phenomenological model (the Swift-Hohenberg equation) and explain why the qualitative predictions of this model help us understand the properties of much more complicated systems exhibiting spatial localization including several examples arising in fluid dynamics.