DTC Seminar Series

Atomic nuclei, random matrices, quantum chaos

by

Oriol Bohigas
CNRS, Orsay, France

Wednesday, October 27, 2004
2:30 pm

402 Walter Library

Wigner introduced random matrices to physics when searching for a guiding principle to understand the properties of the compound nucleus. Experimental observations turned out to be remarkably consistent with random matrix predictions. Could random matrix theory be justified in dynamical terms? In order to answer this question some deep connections between quantum behavior of classically chaotic systems (quantum chaos) and random matrices were found. Extensions, which are of interest from the number-theoretic viewpoint, have also been investigated. This itinerary will be sketched, as well as some recent miscellaneous problems.

Oriol Bohigas is currently Directeur de Recherches, CNRS, at Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques (LPTMS), in Orsay, France. His interests inlcude: theoretical physics, resarch in nuclear structure physics, nuclear spectroscopy, collective excitations, applications of random matrix theories, quantum chaos, random polynomials and some connections to number theoretical problems. He received the Holweck Prize of the Institute of Physics, UK in 1999.