Building E, Room 1

Stefanos Papanikolaou - Cornell University - Ithaca, NY

The study of critical phenomena and universal power laws has been a
central theme of statistical mechanics, in explaining traditional equilibrium critical points, avalanche behavior near depinning-like
transitions and other related phenomena. Scaling and universality
predict all behavior at long length and time scales asymptotically
close to critical points. In most cases, the identification of a
universality class in experiments has been limited to the evaluation
of critical exponents for power law distributions predicted at
criticality. An excellent playground of scaling phenomena is provided
by systems exhibiting crackling noise, such as the Barkhausen effect.
I will describe the interplay between theory and experiments in this
context, and I will also explore our more recent progress in
understanding multivariable scaling functions.

Short Bio:
Stefanos took his BSc in Physics (ptychion) from the
National&Capodistrean University of Athens in March of 2003 and then
he moved to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to pursue his
MSc(2005) and phD(2008) under the supervision of Eduardo H. Fradkin.
His PhD was focused on the statistical mechanics of frustrated lattice
systems and their connections with exotic condensed matter phases. He
then moved to Cornell University for continuing research as a
postdoctoral researcher, where he is involved in collaborations with
James P. Sethna, Chris L. Henley and Vinay Ambegaokar, in a multitude
of topics in statistical mechanics.