Berlin 2008 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 4: Brownian motion and transport

DY 4.6: Talk

Monday, February 25, 2008, 15:30–15:45, MA 004

Branched Flow and Caustics in Random Media — •Jakob J. Metzger, Ragnar Fleischmann, and Theo Geisel — Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen, Germany

Classical particles as well as quantum mechanical waves exhibit complex behaviour when propagating through random media. One of the surprising features of the dynamics in correlated, weak disorder potentials is the appearance of branches in the flow. This can be observed in several physical systems, most notably in the electron flow in two-dimensional electron gases [1].

We show that the branching is due to the formation of caustics and present advances in the theoretical understanding and numerical simulation of the caustics. We compare our results to existing theoretical models. In particular, we study the statistics of the first appearance of a caustic along a trajectory.

[1] e.g. Topinka, M. A. et. al. Nature, 2001, 410, 183-186; Jura, M. P. et. al. Nat Phys, advanced online publication, Nov. 2007