ANALYSIS/MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR

Shape Fluctuations of Growing Droplets and Random Matrix Theory
Herbert Spohn
Technical University, Munich
Date & Time: 
Fri, 03/18/2011 - 11:30 - 12:30
Location: 
S-101

We explain an exact solution of the one-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation with sharp wedge initial data. Physically this solution describes the shape fluctuations of a thin film droplet formed by the stable phase expanding into the unstable phase. In the long time limit our solution converges to the Tracy-Widom distribution of the largest eigenvalue of GUE random matrices.