Colloquium di Matematica a Roma Tre:

Alexandre Stauffer (University of Bath, UK)

Titolo: Random growth processes: dendritic formation and competition

Mercoledi' 21 Marzo 2018 ORE 16:00

Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica Universita' degli Studi Roma Tre Aula F, primo piano, edificio Aule - Largo San Leonardo Murialdo,1

Abstract During the 80's, several growth processes were introduced in the physics literature with the goal of providing a simple and tractable model producing the phenomenon of dendritic growth. Such phenomenon is observed in several different contexts in nature, including the growth of bacteria under starvation, crystal dendrite, dielectric breakdown, and electrodeposition, and is characterized by the formation of very ramified, fractal-like structures. Almost four decades later, we still encounter tremendous mathematical challenges in studying the geometric and dynamic properties of such processes, and in understanding the driving mechanism lying behind the formation of fractal-like structures. In this talk, I will survey the developments in this field, giving emphasis to recent results in the classical model of multi-particle diffusion limited aggregation (MDLA). I will also introduce and discuss a new growth process, which can be viewed as a model for the growth of two species that compete for space, and which plays a key role in our current understanding of MDLA. This is based on joint works with Elisabetta Candellero and Vladas Sidoravicius.