97022242 Middleton This is a CAREER award to a new faculty member who is conducting research on computational methods to investigate transport properties in condensed matter systems with strongly interacting degrees of freedom. The education component of this award will focus on the integration of computational methods into courses and departmental infrastructure. The research component is comprised of two parts. The first is a study of ground states and barriers in extended systems such as fluid interfaces and magnetic domain walls. New methods for finding low-energy configurations of interfaces and multiple interacting lines will be applied. The second component involves charge transport in arrays of mesoscopic islands: in particular, charge transport in low temperature arrays of sub-micron sized conducting dots coupled by tunnel junctions. The educational component involves developing courses which communicates to both undergraduate and graduate students the rich interaction between condensed matter physics and computational physics. Modern physical examples from research will be introduced into the classroom to teach students how to effectively use computational tools to study scientific problems. %%% This is a CAREER award to a new faculty member who is conducting research on computational methods to investigate transport properties in condensed matter systems with strongly interacting degrees of freedom. The education component of this award will focus on the integration of computational methods into courses and departmental infrastructure. The research component is comprised of two parts. The first is a study of ground states and barriers in extended systems such as fluid interfaces and magnetic domain walls. New methods for finding low-energy configurations of interfaces and multiple interacting lines will be applied. The second component involves charge transport in arrays of mesoscopic islands: in particular, charge transport in lo w temperature arrays of sub-micron sized conducting dots coupled by tunnel junctions. The educational component involves developing courses which communicates to both undergraduate and graduate students the rich interaction between condensed matter physics and computational physics. Modern physical examples from research will be introduced into the classroom to teach students how to effectively use computational tools to study scientific problems. ***
