UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO COLORADO SPRINGS

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE

UCCS CAMPUS MAP

DRIVING DIRECTIONS

Pattern Formation and Dynamics in Nematic Electroconvection
 

Juliana Oprea

Department of Mathematics

Colorado State University

Fort Collins

The subject of the spontaneous formation of patterns in systems far from equilibrium is an exciting and fast-growing branch of applied mathematics and physics, with strong impact on fields as diverse as ecology, chemistry, and new technologies and processes. Dissipative systems, in which energy must be supplied through a gradient such in temperature, velocity, concentration, etc, to maintain the physical instability, are a good step towards a description of this variety of phenomena.

In this talk, the basic mathematical tools in analyzing the selection mechanisms and the dynamics of patterns in extended dissipative systems are summarized and exemplified on a paradigm system, the electroconvection in nematic liquid crystals.