This award provides support to defray expenses of participants in the week-long Arizona School of Analysis and Mathematical Physics to be held at the University of Arizona on March 12-16, 2012. Much of the funding will be directed to young mathematicians (i.e., postdocs, graduate students, junior faculty) who do not have their own support.
This year's school will introduce a number of areas of active research at a level accessible to young mathematicians; the target audience will be specifically strong graduate students and recent postdocs. The school will be organized around four mini-courses. Each will be given by an expert in the field who is known for their pedagogical skills. More precisely, the program will include the following: 1. Hypothesis testing and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics by Yoshiko Ogata (University of Tokyo). 2. Derivation of effective evolution equations from quantum dynamics by Benjamin Schlein (Universitat Bonn). 3. Random Schrodinger operators by Simone Warzel (Technische Universitat Munchen). 4. The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation and its universality class by Jeremy Quastel (University of Toronto).
The school will afford many junior researchers the opportunity to learn and interact with established researchers in analysis and mathematical physics. It will be an event with significant research and training impact.
was held at the University of Arizona from March 12 to 16, 2012, as a weeklong school aimed at junior researchers, in particular PhD students and recent postdocs, with the goal of exposing them to important recent research trends in mathematical physics. It was the third part of a series of schools on related topics, previously held in 2009 and 2010, with the central goal of bringing together today’s leading researchers in the field of mathematical physics with an eager and talented audience of future investigators. Mathematical Physics is an interdisciplinary research area which connects deep analytical tools from theoretical mathematics with relevant applications in the physical sciences, such as statistical mechanics, quantum information theory and condensed matter physics. Some of the specific applications addressed at the Arizona School were quantum hypothesis testing, electronic transport properties of disordered media such as alloys, and the effective modeling of large interacting quantum systems. Particular attention was given to the increasing importance of probabilistic modeling and statistical methods. Four mini-courses were presented by Yoshiko Ogata (University of Tokyo), Jeremy Quastel (University of Toronto), Benjamin Schlein (University of Bonn), and Simone Warzel (Technical University Munich), each of them giving in depth introductions to their research areas and recent works. The mini-courses were complemented by five additional one-hour expert lectures on progress made recently. Sixteen of the junior participants were selected to give short presentations of research they are doing towards a PhD thesis or as postdocs. For this and the two previous Arizona Schools the organizers have maintained a website which serves as a freely accessible resource for materials on state-of-the-art research in Mathematical Physics. Of the 76 participants of the Arizona School 45 were graduate students, 12 postdocs and one young faculty, a combined 76 percent of participants. 84 percent of the funding from this grant was spent to support travel and accommodation of junior researchers and on incidentals such as conference packages and coffee breaks. This was in part made possible by senior participants, including speakers, who used other sources of support, but also by the Department of Mathematics at the University of Arizona, which provided additional financial support and free access to resources. Feedback received by participants is very positive, often mentioning that the school has provided opportunities to gain new perspectives and learn about new research directions as well as the chance to meet experts, peers and potential future collaborators. The organizers are strongly encouraged to continue the series of Arizona Schools in the future.
