Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 24: Extreme Events (joint session DY / SOE)

SOE 24.1: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 19, 2015, 15:00–15:30, BH-N 243

Branched Flows, Extreme Waves and the Random Focusing of Tsunami Waves — •Ragnar Fleischmann — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization

Wave propagation in random media - this might sound abstract but is in fact very tangible and almost omnipresent in science and everyday life. Examples are surface water waves, but also light, sound, electrons, tsunamis and even earth quakes are waves that in a natural environment typically propagate through a complex medium. Due to its complexity, the medium is often best described as random, with examples including the turbulent atmosphere, complex patterns of ocean currents or a semiconductor crystal sprinkled with impurities. In recent years it has become clear that even very small fluctuations in the random medium, if they are correlated, lead to focussing of the waves in pronounced branch-like spatial structures and to extreme wave intensities. This branching has been reported for electron, micro, sound, and water waves.

I will give an overview over the progress we made in the last few years in the understanding of branched flows and the statistic of extreme waves. As an example, I will discuss the random focusing of tsunamis and its implications for the prediction of tsunami wave heights.