Stability at saddles of potentials
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Speaker: Prof. Ravi Rau, Department of Physics, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.A.
Abstract: A variety of instances in celestial, classical and quantum mechanics, and electromagnetism involve quasi-stability at saddle points of multi-dimensional surfaces. These include Lagrange Points and Trojan asteroids, Paul traps, highly excited states of atoms in magnetic fields, and doubly-excited states of atoms. Some unifying themes behind these patterns, especially Coriolis-type couplings in both time-dependent and time-independent phenomena for quasi-stability, will be discussed.
Venue: Departmental Library, Physics Department (Second floor) IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai
Event Type: Seminar/Talk