Levich Institute Seminar Announcement, 04/29/2008

Tuesday, 04/29/2008 2:00 PM Steinman Hall, Room #312 (Chemical Engineering Conference Room) Professor Bulbul Chakraborty Brandeis University Physics Department "A Phase Space for Jamming"

ABSTRACT

In a remarkably diverse range of systems, the transition from a flowing, liquid state to a jammed, solid state is heralded by a dramatic slowing down of relaxations. Does an equilibrium phase transition underlie this glassy dynamics? To even begin to address this question, we need a statistical framework for describing systems out of thermal equilibrium. Can we construct a phase space for describing phase transitions in such non-equilibrium systems? In this talk, I will show how to construct a statistical ensemble for grain packings and use this statistical ensemble to construct a phase space for jamming and a field theory of two dimensional, zero-temperature, frictionless grain packings.

BRIEF ACADEMIC/EMPLOYMENT BACKGROUND:

• SUNY at Stony Brook, PH.D.
• SUNY at Stony Brook, M.S.
• Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, B.S.

CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS:

My recent research has focussed on a) analyzing the origin of glassy dynamics in supercooled liquids with a specific focus on the question of an underlying critical point, (b) exploring the origin of force chains in granular media and their effect on the jamming of granular flows, (c) the nature of the jamming transition and (d) constructing a statistical framework for dissipative systems

Return to Fluid Mechanics Spring, 2008 Seminar Menu