FLUCTUATIONS, ESCAPE, AND OPTIMAL CONTROL


August 17 - August 21, 1997
Traverse City, Michigan



ORGANIZER:

 M.I. Dykman, Michigan State University

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
R. Fox Georgia Institute of Technology,
A.J. Leggett University of Illinois
K. Lindenberg University of California, San Diego
R.S. Maier University of Arizona
P.V.E. McClintock Lancaster University
H. Rabitz Princeton University
D.L. Stein University of Arizona

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

Sunday, August 17 6:00 - 9:00 pm Reception at Park Place Hotel

Monday, August 18 Chairman: R. Landauer
8:30 Opening remarks
8:40 M.V. Berry: Singularity-dominated strong fluctuations
9:20 B. Golding: Low-temperature incoherent tunneling
10:00 R. Graham: Fluctuations in steady states and potential plateaus

10:40 - 11:00 Coffee break

Chairman: M.I. Freidlin
11:00 P.V.E. McClintock: Experiments on the optimal force
11:40 R.L. Kautz: Quasipotentials and Josephson junctions

12:20 - 2:30 Lunch

Chairman: D.L. Stein
2:30 L.E. Reichl: Intrinsic electron lifetimes in electron waveguides and models of atoms
3:10 L. Lapidus: Collective behavior of parametrically excited electrons in a cylindrical microwave cavity

3:40 - 4:20 Coffee break

Chairman: R.S. Maier
4:20 M.I. Freidlin: Random Perturbations of Dynamical Systems: Large Deviations and Averaging
5:00 M.V. Day: Hamilton-Jacobi Equations and Small Noise Phenomena

6:10 Dinner

8:00 Poster session and discussions. There will be short oral presentations on the contents of the posters. Refreshments will be served.

Tuesday, August 19 Chairman: M.V. Berry
8:30 E. Ott: Riddled basins of attraction: inevitable uncertainties in outcomes of experiments
9:10 R. Roy: Coherence and chaos in laser dynamics
9:50 V.N. Smelyanskiy: Nonadiabatic theory of escape and nucleation in periodically driven systems

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee break

Chairman: G. Gabrielse
11:00 P. Bucksbaum: Control of quantum wavepackets in atoms and molecules
11:40 H. Rabitz: Altering the pathways of quantum dynamics

12:20 - 2:30 Lunch

Chairman: L.E. Reichl
2:30 R.S. Maier: The stochastic exit problem and the geometrical theory of diffraction
3:10 R. Eisenberg: Nonequilibrium statistics of open ionic channels

3:50 - 4:20 Coffee break

Chairman: A.J. McKane
4:20 D.G. Luchinsky: Irreversibility of classical fluctuations
5:00 W. Vance: Stochastic potential for periodically forced nonlinear oscillators
5:30 N. Gunther: A history in the sum-of-histories approach to computational performance analysis

7:30 - 10:00 Conference dinner.
Post-dinner speaker: R. Landauer, Fashionability in science and technology.

Wednesday, August 20 Chairman: P.V.E. McClintock
8:30 K. Lindenberg:What does a polaron look like and how might it move?
9:10 C. Doering: Some mathematical issues in the theory of stochastic ratchets
9:50 D.L. Stein: The escape problem in the absence of detailed balance: caustics, bifurcations, and scaling

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee break

Chairman: M.I. Dykman
11:00 G. Gabrielse: Dressed coherent states of the anharmonic oscillator
11:40 H. Carmichael: Quantum switching in nonlinear optics using quantum trajectories

12:20 - 2:30 Lunch

Chairman: K. Lindenberg
2:30 A.J. McKane: Unstable decay and state selection
3:10 L.S. Schulman: Time symmetric thermodynamics, theoretical and observational.

3:50 - 4:20 Coffee break

Chairman: L.S. Schulman
4:20 M.M. Millonas: The theory of large fluctuations, and the problem of optimal control: from dynamical keys to caustics
5:00 B.E. Vugmeister: Tails of prehistory probability density in multistable stochastic systems
5:30 B. Spagnolo: Resonant activation in a fluctuating metastable model system
6:00 N.G. Stocks (Title to be announced)

6:30 - 8:00 Dinner

8:00 - 10:00 Round-table discussion

Thursday, August 21 Chairman: C. Doering
8:30 M.I. Dykman: Critical broadening of the distribution of fluctuational paths
9:10 M. Bier:Adiabatic relaxation of brownian particle in a fluctuating potential
9:50 P.S. Landa: Noise-induced phase transitions in simple systems

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee break

Chairman: H. Rabitz
11:00 S.M. Soskin: Large fluctuations in periodically driven dissipative zero-dispersion systems
11:30 N.D. Stein: Quasimonochromatic noise-driven ratchets
12:00 R. Mannella: Numerical tricks for studying large rare fluctuations

12:40 Adjournment

ACCOMMODATIONS:

 All sessions will be held at the Park Place Hotel, which is located at 300 East State St., Traverse City, ph. (800)748-0133, FAX: (616)946-2772. Participants must make their own hotel reservations. Participants will register on Sunday, Aug. 17. The registration fee is $80, which includes breakfasts at the Park Place Hotel, coffee breaks on the working days of the conference, the reception on August 17, and the conference dinner. Room rates are $105 per night, single or double, $115 triple, and $125 quad. Mention the Fluctuations, Escape, and Optimal Control conference. Reservations must be made no later than July 16, 1997, to get the special conference rate. Breakfasts will be served at 7:30 am

TRAVEL:

 Traverse City is served by its own airport, the Cherry Capitol Airport, Traverse City, which is 2-miles from Downtown. The Park-Place Hotel has a complimentary 24 hour shuttle service. A courtesy telephone is located in the airport, close to the baggage claim area, which should be used to call for service. The nearest large airport is in Detroit which is 250 miles drive from Traverse City. It is recommended that you arrange a connecting flight to Traverse City. Car rentals are available at the Traverse City airport. There is also local transportation provided by the Bay Area Transit Authority until 8pm.

SIGHTSEEING:

 Traverse City is a popular resort in the northern part of Michigan. It is located on Grand Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan. Information on sightseeings and various recreational activities is available from the Convention and Visitor Bureau, ph.(800)940-1120.
Traverse City map

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