Mercredi 30 octobre à 9h00, salle de séminaires IRPHE
Abstract: Spatially localized structures arise frequently in driven dissipative systems, ranging from fluid flows, through nonlinear optics to reaction-diffusion systems and even vegetation structures in ecology. In these lectures I will describe a number of examples from different physical systems, followed by a discussion of the basic ideas behind the phenomenon of nonlinear self-localization that is responsible for their existence. I will illustrate these ideas using a simple phenomenological model, the Swift-Hohenberg equation, and explain why the qualitative predictions of this model help us understand the properties of much more complicated systems exhibiting spatial localization, including those arising in fluid mechanics.