Construct the Solution Landscape beyond the Energy Landscape

Title: Construct the Solution Landscape beyond the Energy Landscape 

Speaker: Prof. Lei Zhang(Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research, Peking University) 

Time: 4:00-6:00pm, Apr. 19 

Location: Room 200-9, Sir Shaw Run Run Business Administration building, School of Mathematical Sciences, Yuquan Campus 

Abstract: In mathematics, physics, and chemistry, an energy landscape is a map of the energy function across the configuration space of the system, which can provide the information such as local minima. In this talk, we propose an efficient algorithm to construct the solution landscape, which is a directed graph consisting of all critical points of the energy function. The solution landscape shows a global and intrinsic properties of the system that is beyond the energy landscape. As an illustration, we apply the Landau-de Gennes theory to study the defects in nematic liquid crystal. We show how to build the complete solution landscape of nematic liquid crystals in a 2D square to advance our understanding on the mathematical models. The joint work with Pingwen Zhang (PKU), Jianyuan Yin (PKU). 

Contact Person: Qinghai Zhang (qinghai@zju.edu.cn)