Mean field theory of a polymer in a random medium and relation to travelling waves

Statistical Physics and Complexity Group meeting

Mean field theory of a polymer in a random medium and relation to travelling waves

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 4th February 2015
  • Speaker: (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

The problem of a directed polymer in a random medium has been studied for a number of decades, but is still an area of active research. I will show how the mean field equations can be obtained for the model on a tree and show that there is a transition to a random but frozen state. Time permitting I will indicate how the solution of the mean field equations can be viewed as travelling waves similar to solutions of the Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piscounov (KPP) equation.