This award will support Prof. Rama Bansil and Prof. William Klein of the Center for Polymer Studies of Boston University in a research collaboration with Prof. A. Coniglio of the University of Naples. The objective of the collaboration is to seek a better understanding of how basic physical laws are altered on random materials and also of the physics of inhomogeneous media. In order to carry out this objective, the researchers propose to study 5 general topics: Topic I, the phenomena of multifractality in random materials, whereby an infinite hierarchy of exponents is sufficient to characterize virtually any system near its critical point. Topic II is concerned with applications of modern methods of statistical mechanics to physical processes on disordered media and to how a random material is fractured under sufficiently high stresses. In Topic III the researchers plan to address questions concerned with one specific class of random materials, linear and branched polymers. Topic IV is concerned with the relation between geometric clusters and thermal phase transitions, while Topic V will involve experiments using dynamic light scattering techniques to investigate the problem of probe diffusion in polymer gels. This work will continue a highly productive collaboration that has led to useful concepts and applications to problems like irreversible growth, resistor networks and many others.
