Bayes Forum: Supersymmetry in a classical world: new insights on stochastic dynamics from topological field theory

by Igor Ovchinnikov (UCLA, Cluster guest)

Friday 17 Jul 2015, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Berlin

Seminar Room E.0.11 (Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik)

Prominent long-range phenomena in natural dynamical systems such as the 1/f and flicker noises, and the power-law statistics observed, e.g., in solar flares, gamma-ray bursts, and neuroavalanches are still not fully understood. A new framework sheds light on the mechanism of emergence of these rich phenomena from the point of view of stochastic dynamics of their underlying systems. This framework exploits an exact correspondence relation of any stochastic differential equation (SDE) with a dual (topological) supersymmetric model. This talk introduces into the basic ideas of the framework. It will show that the emergent long-range dynamical behavior in Nature can be understood as the result of the spontaneous breakdown of the topological supersymmetry that all SDE's possess. Surprisingly enough, the concept of supersymmetry, devised mainly for particle physics, has direct applicability and predictive power, e.g., over the electrochemical dynamics in a human brain. The mathematics of the framework will be detailed in a separate lecture series on "Dynamical Systems via Topological Field Theory" at MPA from July 27th to July 31st.