Physical Mathematics Seminar

Speaker:  Pedro J. Sáenz (UNC, Chapel Hill)

Title:   Hydrodynamic Wave-Particle Duality

Abstract:

Millimetric liquid droplets can walk across the surface of a vibrating fluid bath, self-propelled through a resonant interaction with their own guiding wave fields. By virtue of the coupling with their wave fields, these walking droplets, or ‘walkers’, extend the range of classical mechanics to include certain features previously thought to be exclusive to the subatomic, quantum realm. In this talk, we will combine experiments, simulations and theory to discuss (1) the mechanism for orbital quantization in a rotating frame, (2) the emergence of spin waves in hydrodynamic spin lattices, and (3) the absence of diffusion of a walker over a random topography.