Dr. Martin Gruebele, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Seminar Title: Simple dynamics of complex systems: from quantum scrambling to ultrafast carbon dots, to proteins in cells
Host: Bernard Kohler, Kohler.40@osu.edu
Abstract:Simple rules often underlie the dynamics of seemingly complex systems. In this talk, I will discuss a few of our results on how energy localizes or scrambles in quantum systems (quantum dynamics simulations), how we can detect energy transfer with nanometer spatial and femtosecond time resolution in single nanoparticles (carbon particle synthesis, scanning microscopy ), and how protein interactions can differ markedly inside the cell from the classic test tube experiments (in-cell microscopy and tracking), for example when bacterial tubulins assemble in mammalian cells. In each case, relatively simple principles are at work, but the intrinsically flawed nature of the systems (atomic or biological in nature) controls the dynamics and can lead to very heterogeneous results.
