Tuesday, 05/10/2022
2:00 PM
Steinman Hall #312
Professor Eric De Giuli
Ryerson University
“What is the Simplest Model of an Amorphous Solid?”
PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE AN IN-PERSON SEMINAR WITH A SIMULTANEOUS ZOOM LINK – https://ccny.zoom.us/j/84386720790
ABSTRACT
From glasses and emulsions to colloids and granular matter, amorphous solids show surprising universality in correlations, vibrational properties, and rheology. It has become increasingly clear that constraints of mechanical equilibrium control these universal features. Is there a simple model, analogous to the Debye model for crystals, able to explain this? I will review attempts to answer this question from jamming, large-dimension, and field-theoretic approaches, and argue that the latter is useful and parsimonious. Future challenges and gaps in understanding will be outlined. No specific background in condensed matter physics will be assumed.
BRIEF ACADEMIC/EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:
2013 – Ph.D University of British Columbia
2013-2017 – Postdoc at NYU / EPFL with Matthieu Wyart
2017-2019 – Postdoc at Institut Philippe Meyer, ENS Paris
2019- now – Assistant Prof at Ryerson U, Toronto
MOST RECENT RESEARCH INTERESTS:
1) Field-theoretic approach to amorphous materials
2) Nonequilibrium steady states in chemical reaction networks (origin of life)
3) Emergence of structure in language models
