Calculus of Variations and Geometric Measure Theory

Research Officer - Mathematical Sciences - University of Bath (UK) - Fixed term available for 30 months

created by difrancesco on 18 Jun 2013

Deadline: 12 jul 2013

Applications are invited for a 2.5 year postdoctoral Research Officer position in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Bath. The successful applicant will take up the post no later than 15 December 2013. The position is funded by the EPSRC project "Analysis of the effective long time-behaviour of molecular systems". The aim of this project is to develop analytic scale-bridging techniques to understand and predict the long-time behaviour of many-particle systems far from equilibrium. The project is motivated by, and aims to contribute to, key mathematical challenges in molecular dynamics (MD), that is to say stochastically perturbed Hamiltonian dynamics. In Bath, the project will be supervised by Dr Johannes Zimmer. The project is a collaboration with Prof. Gero Friesecke, Technische Universität München. Funding is available for a six month stay in Munich during the project. The topic of the research is problems far from equilibrium, such as - to derive coarse-grained effective evolution equations, in the spirit of the recent derivation of macroscopic diffusion equations as entropic gradient flows - to clarify the mathematical role of metastability and transition states in the dynamics of model systems - to analyse the long-time behaviour of conformation states by means of a spectral analysis of the transfer operator.

We welcome applications from candidates who have no specific expertise in the aforementioned areas, but instead in related fields such as applied analysis, applied stochastic processes, differential equations or applied probability.

The successful candidate will be expected to have a PhD awarded or submitted, in mathematics or a related discipline. The candidate will have expertise relevant for the projects listed above and will have demonstrated potential for excellence in research and an emerging track record of publication in high quality, peer reviewed journals.

Only applications received before midnight UK time on Friday 12 July 2013 will be considered.

Tentative interview date 30 July 2013.