Topics in Material Science: Spectral theory in wave dynamics, from classical theory to open problems

Math 7384
Louisiana State University
Spring Semester, 2017

Prof. Stephen Shipman

Place: Lockett 111
Time: 1:30-2:50 Tuesday and Thursday

Office: Room 314 of Lockett Hall
Telephone: 225/578-1674
Email: shipman@math.lsu.edu
Office Hours: By appointment

Course Description

Spectral theory of self-adjoint and normal operators underlies the dynamics of linear waves in classical and quantum physics. In fact, the mathematical theory is largely driven by physics. This is a huge and varied field, and I will choose the direction, flavor, and topics based on my research activity and tastes.

The material will come from my notes and from various books and articles in the literature.

Prerequisite

Proposed Course Topics

1. Spectral theorem and concrete realizations of it

   Unitary representations and Fourier transforms for symmetry groups of a physical structure

   Connection to complex analysis and moment problems

2. Spectral theory in wave dynamics

   Operators for wave dynamics that commute with symmetry groups

   Analysis of operator resolvents

   Scattering of waves by objects: modified Fourier modes caused by local perturbations

   Resonance

   Limiting amplitude principle and limiting absorption principle

3. Some relatively classical examples

   Bound states and eigenvalues, symmetry-protected spectrally embedded eigenvalues

   Resonance

   Coercivity and compactness

   The Fermi algebraic surface for periodic media, reducibility, relation to embedded eigenvalues

4. Current research and open problems

   "Negative-index" materials

   Non-symmetry-protected embedded eigenvalues

   Topologically protected eigenstates

   Symmetries of Euclidean space--the wallpaper groups and the Bieberbach groups

   Nonlinear scattering problems

Literature

We will not use any one source as a text book. My lectures will draw from my notes and several references.

There is a bibliography of relevant works below, with links to some PDF files of excerpts.

Assignments

Enrolled students will present a special topic or problem to the class. There will be lots of problems to solve, of course, but no required submission of assignments.

Evaluation

Evaluation of performance in the course is based on the presentation. 17A-7384_Notes1

Lecture Notes and Problem Sets

Bibliography

1. Peter Kuchment, An Overview of Periodic Elliptic Operators, Bulletin of the AMS, 2016.
2. My Notes on Resonance 2014.
3. Peter Kuchment, The Mathematics of Photonic Crystals, Chapter 7 in Mathematical Modeling in Optical Science, Vol. 22 of Frontiers in Applied Mathematics, SIAM 2001.
4. David Bindel, Resonance Sensitivity for Schrödinger, Notes, 2006.
5. David Bindel and Maciej Zworski, Theory and Computation of Resonances in 1D Scattering (website).
6. Maciej Zworski, Resonances in Physics and Geometry, Notices of the AMS, 1999.
7. Maciej Zworski, Mathematical Theory of Scattering Resonances Lecture notes, Version 0.1, 2016.
8. Maciej Zworski Mathematical Study of Scattering Resonances 2016.
9. Michael Reed and Barry Simon, Methods of Modern Mathematics: Vol. I Functional Analysis, Vol. II Fourier Analysis and Self-Adjointness, Vol. III Scattering Theory, Vol. IV Analysis of Operators, excerpts from Vol. I (spectral theorem), Vol. II (self-adjoint extensions), Academic Press, 1980.
10. Stephen P. Shipman and Aaron T. Welters, Resonant electromagnetic scattering in anisotropic layered media, J. Math. Phys. 54(10) 103511-1--40 (2013). pdf
11. N. I. Akhiezer and I. M. Glazman, Theory of Linear Operators in Hilbert Space, Dover, 1993, replication of the edition of F. Ungar Publishing, NY, 1961, 1963.
12. A. N. Kolmogorov and S. V. Fomin, Introductory Real Analysis, §36: The Stieljes integral, 1968 (translation by Silverman, Dover 1975).
13. Gerald B. Folland, Introduction to Partial Differential Equations, Second Edition, Princeton University Press, 1995. Excerpt: Chapter 0.