In another lecture, Prof Giorgio Parisi presents some recent numerical evaluations of thermodynamical potentials in order to characterize the properties of glassy systems.
In order to characterize the properties of glassy systems it is convenient to define thermodynamical potentials using two replicas (or clones) of the same system. These potentials can be computed analytically (exactly in infinite range models or within some approximations in finite dimensional cases); they can be used to present a clear and physical formulation of the thermodynamical approach to the glass transition. Some recent numerical evaluations of these potential will be presented.
About the speaker
Prof Giorgio Parisi received his PhD from Rome University in 1970. He worked as a researcher at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati from 1971 to 1981, and became full professor at Rome University in 1981. He is now professor of Quantum Theories at the University of Rome I, La Sapienza.
Prof Parisi received the Feltrinelli Prize for Physics in 1986, the Boltzmann medal in 1992, the Dirac medal and prize in 1999, the Italian Prime Minister prize in 2002, and the Galileo prize in 2006. He is a fellow of the Accademia dei Lincei, the French Academy of Sciences, the Accademia dei XL and the US National Academy of Sciences.
Prof Parisi has published 3 books and written about 500 scientific publications on reviews. His main research has been in the field of elementary particles, theory of phase transitions and statistical mechanics, mathematical physics and string theory, disordered systems (spin glasses and complex systems), neural networks, theoretical immunology, computers and very large-scale simulations of QCD (the APE project), and non-equilibrium statistical physics.
