Speaker: Dr. Mike Russell
Honorary Profesor, Department of Mathematics, Heriot Watt University Edinburgh, UK.

Abstract:

Natural crystals of the mineral mica muscovite are transparent but contain an impurity of iron. As the crystals cool after forming deep underground the impurity precipitates out onto small defects in the crystal, thus recording them for ever. This recording process is astonishingly sensitive, allowing tracks of cosmic rays to be recorded and even the violent shaking of atoms in the crystal. Studies of these decorated defects led to the discovery of a highly localised lattice excitation, called a quodon, that propagates in the lattice. Quodons arise from the non-linear behavior of crystals and were studied by numerical methods. The reality of quodons has been demonstrated recently by experiment. Possible applications of these quasi-particles to practical problems are discussed, as annealing damage in nuclear reactors.

Seminar in Sevilla. December 16, 2005, 12:30h.
Premises: Seminar of the Department of Applied Physics I at ETSI Informática (L3).
Avda Reina Mercedes s/n, 41012-Sevilla, Spain

Organizer: Juan FR Archilla, Group of Nonlinear Physics (GFNL)