Studies in Fluids: Splashing, Singularities and Memory Formation

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Technical AbstractThis award has two broad goals: to study memory in various condensed matter systems and to study the flow of fluids with negligible surface tension. The first project concentrates on memory and memory loss in far-from-equilibrium disordered systems that have been "trained" to have a specific behavior. There may a generic class of memory, that can be seen in such systems, that has unusual properties in that, without noise, the more one trains the system the less it remembers. The project also includes a study of how submerged air bubbles can remember initial conditions through a breakup singularity and an investigation of rejuvenation and memory in aging glassy systems. The second project, on fluids with negligible surface tension, includes a study of fingering instabilities in driven miscible fluids as well as granular jets, where the granular matter can be considered as a fluid. Postdoctoral associates and graduate students will be trained in the study of complex phenomena. Because much of this research deals with macroscopic phenomena, it provides an excellent starting place for bringing undergraduate and high-school students into the laboratory. This research affords excellent outreach to the public. Some of the work has been a focus of museum exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and the Exploratorium in San Francisco.Non-Technical AbstractThis award has two overarching goals: to study the formation of memories and to study fluids with negligible surface tension. The first project concentrates on memory formation in far-from-equilibrium disordered systems. Previous work from this laboratory had uncovered unusual behavior that may be generic. When a system is repeatedly "trained" over an extended period of time, one normally expects that memory retention will improve with repetition. However, in the cases of interest here, the opposite occurs -the more one trains a system, the less it remembers. The project seeks to understand what causes such behavior and the extent to which such behavior can be seen in a variety of materials including biological ones. The second project, on fluids with negligible surface tension, includes a study of fingering instabilities in driven miscible fluids as well as granular jets, where the granular matter can be considered to be a fluid. Both research topics have significant technological implications. Postdoctoral associates and graduate students will be trained in the study of complex phenomena. Because much of this research deals with macroscopic phenomena, it also provides an excellent starting place for bringing undergraduate and high-school students into a research laboratory. Because the phenomena are so accessible, this research affords excellent outreach to the public. This includes museum exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and the Exploratorium in San Francisco.