The workshop on "The stability of coherent structures and patterns" (http://depts.washington.edu/bdecon/workshop2012/) will educate graduate students on important aspects of stability. It will take place at the University of Washington in Seattle, June 11-12, 2012. The workshop will consist of three different mini-courses, taught by three noted experts in the field of stability. Margaret Beck(Heriott-Watt and Boston University) will present introductory lectures providing a common background to the audience members. Bjorn Sandstede (Brown University) will demonstrate the use of the softwareAUTO for stability applications, and Walter Strauss (Brown University) will examine different aspects of nonlinear and orbital stability.
Stability plays an essential role in many branches of science and engineering, including several aspects of fluid mechanics, high-speed transmission of information, and feasibility of MHD fusion devices. The objective of the workshop is to give an overview of current state-of-the-art methods for examining stability, as well as to present some widely applicable new techniques. The format will consist of three invited speakers giving a series of lectures at a level aimed at graduate students but useful for researchers from a variety of disciplines, such as mathematics, engineering, biology, etc.
Stability plays an essential role in many branches of science and engineering, including different aspects of water waves like tsunamis and rogue waves, fast communication through fibers, and energy independence through nuclear fusion. The aim of the project was to organize a workshop to train the next generation of scientists in the use of the most recent mathematical methods for studying stability. To this end, three mini-courses were presented by experts in the field, to an audience existing mostly of graduate students. The first mini-course consisted of a broad introduction to the modern methods, by Professor Margaret Beck (Boston University, Heriot-Watt University). The second course was an introduction to the powerful software package AUTO, for the computer-assisted calculation of patters and phenomena whose stability we wish to examine. This course was presented by Professor Bjorn Sandstede from Brown University. The last course was given by Professor Walter Strauss, also from Brown University. Professor Strauss talked about the investigation of stability if large disturbances are considered. The audience of the workshop consisted of 20 faculty or industry professionals, 8 junior researchers, 58 graduate students and 4 undergraduate students. The workshop was spread of two days and immediate preceded the SIAM conference on nonlinear waves and coherent structures.
