PIPages
Labs

Adam Kanigowski

University of Maryland, MD·Mathematics & Statistics

Can a fully deterministic system, one whose future is completely fixed by its present state, behave as unpredictably as a sequence of independent coin tosses? This question drives the study of chaos in smooth dynamical systems.

Fields

Mathematics & Statistics

Topics

ergodic theory

dynamical systems

smooth dynamics

Grants
1 known grant, through May 2029

What they work on

  1. Study how chaotic and statistical properties arise and interact in smooth dynamical systems where some, but not all, Lyapunov exponents (rates at which nearby paths spread apart) are zero.
  2. Measure "slow chaos" in zero-entropy dynamical systems, beyond the algebraic unipotent examples, by establishing rates of mixing and equidistribution, spectral properties and limit theorems.
  3. Prove sparse ergodic theorems for homogeneous dynamical systems. These describe how orbits behave when sampled along polynomial sequences and k-primes, numbers with exactly k prime factors.

More about the research

These are mathematical models of motion on curved spaces called manifolds. They connect to physics, geometry, number theory and even economics. This project combines tools from ergodic theory (the study of the long-term statistical behavior of systems), probability and geometry to build a general framework for these chaotic and statistical properties.

Why it matters

This is basic mathematics. It clarifies when deterministic systems behave randomly and how quickly they mix and spread out. The results could eventually inform related questions in geometry and number theory, such as how orbits behave along primes. They could also inform physics and economics, where chaotic dynamics model real systems.

Known grants

From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.

Ergodic Properties of Smooth Systems on Manifolds and Related Topics

NSF · Jun 2026 – May 2029

Closest labs

Anne Wilkinson

University of Chicago, IL·Mathematics & Statistics

Make progress on the symplectic C1 ergodic hypothesis by using new perturbation and 'blender' techniques to prove density results for stably ergodic symplectomorphisms, maps that preserve a particular geometric structure.

Osama Khalil

University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Mathematics & Statistics·Early-career

Study how rational points are distributed near self-similar (fractal-like) sets, using homogeneous dynamics, the study of motion on spaces built from symmetry groups, to attack questions in Diophantine approximation.

Samuel Punshon-Smith

Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Mathematics & Statistics·Early-career

Develop a microlocal framework, using pseudodifferential operators that track behavior across spatial scales, to analyze how randomly fluctuating velocity fields mix a substance in advection-diffusion and nonlinear fluid PDE models.

The school

University of Maryland: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 602 research doctorates a year.

More about University of Maryland

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