Calculus of Variations and Geometric Measure Theory

From the liquid drop model for nuclei to the ionization conjecture for atoms

Rupert L. Frank

created by gelli on 25 Mar 2021
modified on 18 Apr 2021

21 apr 2021 -- 17:00   [open in google calendar]

Dipartimento di Matematica di Pisa online

The public link will be available on Wednesday 2104

Abstract.

The liquid drop model is an isoperimetric problem with a competing non-local term. It was originally introduced in the nuclear physics literature in 1930 and has received a lot of attention recently as an interesting problem in the calculus of variations. We discuss some new results and open problems. We show how the insights from this problem allowed us to prove the ionization conjecture in a certain model for an atom in density functional theory.