This award will support a Joint US-France Seminar on Partial Differential Equations and Continuum Models of Phase Transitions, to be jointly organized by Prof. Marshall Slemrod, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Prof. Michel Rascle, University of Nice, France. The seminar, to be held in Nice in January, 1988, will bring together researchers from France and the US to discuss the formulation and solution of nonlinear partial differential equations in the fields of mechanics, metallurgy, and solid state physics. The main subjects to be addressed include crystal defects, van der Waals fluids, liquid crystals, numerical simulation, and current problems in both solid state physics and industrial technology. Particular emphasis will be placed on problems which evolve in time. It is especially appropriate to hold this seminar in France at this time, because 1987-88 has been denoted the Special Year of Nonlinear Phenomena by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). This seminar will focus on solutions to differential equations that arise in the study of phase transitions, which have a nonstandard mathematical structure. Building on recent advances in theoretical, applied, and numerical mathematics, this will be the first such seminar to emphasize dynamical problems, and should produce results of use in the solution of problems in solid-state and semiconductor electronics and in fluid mechanics.
