Alberto Acevedo, University of Arizona
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Abstract: Analysis of large systems of interacting particles is a key for predicting and understanding various phenomena arising in different contexts, from physics (in understanding e.g. boson stars) to social studies (when modeling social networks). Since the number of particles is usually very large one would like to understand qualitative and quantitative properties of such systems of particles through some macroscopic, averaged characteristics. In order to identify macroscopic behavior of multi-particle systems, it is helpful to study the asymptotic behavior when the number of particles approaches infinity, with the hope that the limit will approximate properties observed in the systems with a large finite number of particles. An example of an important phenomenon that describes such macroscopic behavior of a large system of particles is the Bose-Einstein condensation. Mathematical models have been developed to understand such phenomena. Those models connect large quantum systems of interacting particles and nonlinear PDE that are derived from such systems in the limit of the number of particles going to infinity. In this talk we will focus on developments that connect a quantum many particle system of bosons and the nonlinear Schrodinger equation, and will apply some of the ideas appearing in this context to a new program of studying well-posedness of Boltzmann equation, which describes the evolution of the probability density of independent identically distributed particles modeling a rarefied gas with predominantly binary elastic interactions.