Random Media and Large Deviations

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports the conference "Random media and large deviations" that will be held October 21-24, 2022, at the Courant Institute of the New York University in New York City. The conference has 26 confirmed speakers in these very active and fundamental areas at the intersection of probability, analysis, and mathematical physics. Many of the complex systems which will be discussed in this conference aim to describe real world phenomena. Results proven for the mathematical models will provide predictions applicable to the real systems. Besides physical applications, complex systems have found many applications in computer science, machine learning, data science, bioinformatics, chemistry and even in areas like ecology and earth science. This gathering will lead to cross-fertilization between these areas as well as inspire and inform a new generation of researchers. It is expected that many graduate students, recent PhDs, and other early career researchers will participate in this conference. The main focus of this conference is the rigorous study of random motion in random media. The goal is to explain how random microscopic systems display predictable and statistically universal collective macroscopic behavior. Large deviations are key to understanding such problems, especially in high dimensions. Many open problems remain in explaining how complicated energy landscapes govern the prestationary behavior of random motion. Different approaches in this area will be represented at the conference, including spin-glasses, stochastic partial differential equations, and random matrix theory. The website for this conference is: https://cims.nyu.edu/conferences/zeutoni/ This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.