Speaker: Evelyn Sander, Mathematical Sciences, George Mason University
Title: The Dynamics of Nucleation in Stochastic Cahn-Morral Systems

Abstract: The Cahn-Hilliard equation serves as a model for several phase separation phenomena in binary metal alloys. This can be extended to a system in order to study the case of alloys with more than two metallic components, in which case it is called a Cahn-Morral system. In this talk, I will discuss dynamical aspects of a Cahn-Morral system for a certain type of phase separation - known as nucleation - in which the material separates into small droplets of a variety of qualitative types. I will present numerical studies in the context of alloys consisting of three metallic components. These studies give a statistical classification for the distribution of droplet types as the component structure of the alloy is varied. Bifurcation methods allow for the computation of the low-energy equilibria of the deterministic equation. I relate the statistics for the stochastic equation to these low-energy equilibria.

Time: Friday, Oct. 1, 2010, 1:30-2:30 p.m.

Place: Science and Tech I, Room 242

Department of Mathematical Sciences
George Mason University
4400 University Drive, MS 3F2
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
http://math.gmu.edu/
Tel. 703-993-1460, Fax. 703-993-1491