Self-Avoiding Walk and Branched Polymers
| MEMBERS SEMINAR | |
| Topic: | Self-Avoiding Walk and Branched Polymers |
| Speaker: | John Imbrie |
| Affiliation: | University of Virginia; Member, School of Mathe |
| Date: | Monday, March 7 |
| Time/Room: | 2:00pm - 3:00pm/S-101 |
I will introduce two basic problems in random geometry. A self-avoiding walk is a sequence of steps in a d-dimensional lattice with no self-intersections. If branching is allowed, it is called a branched polymer. Using supersymmetry, one can map these problems to more tractable ones in statistical mechanics. In many cases this allows for the determination of exponents governing the relationship between the diameter and the number of steps.