Panayotis Kevrekidis
University of Massachusetts, MA·Mathematics & Statistics
Vortices are swirling flow patterns that persist over time. They show up almost everywhere, from tornadoes and dust devils to Jupiter's Great Red Spot to microscopic vortex lines in superfluid helium, a liquid that flows without friction.
- Fields
Mathematics & Statistics
Physics
- Topics
vortex dynamics
Bose-Einstein condensate
ultracold atoms
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Develop reduced, lower-dimensional evolution equations for vortices and soliton filaments in Bose-Einstein condensates, and test them against numerical computations of the full models.
- Study how vortices and soliton filaments are created, removed and interact in experimentally tailored external potentials, using coupled filament and point-vortex models.
- Extend vortex dynamics models to driven, damped polariton condensates, which are light-matter open quantum systems, and compare predictions with polariton experiments.
- Explain how synthetic magnetic monopoles in spin-2 (F=2) spinor condensates become unstable and form Alice-ring-like topological patterns, in collaboration with experimental groups.
More about the research
Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), clouds of atoms cooled so far that they behave as a single quantum wave, offer a clean, controllable setting where the physics of vortices can be both calculated and observed directly in experiments. Understanding these structures matters for basic physics. It may also matter for applications the grant mentions: "analogue gravity" models that mimic spinning black holes, and lab analogs of an expanding universe.
Why it matters
This is mainly basic science. It deepens understanding of topological wave structures, such as vortices, that appear across atomic, optical and wave physics. The grant notes that related localized waves in condensates could improve the sensitivity of interferometers and force sensors. It also notes that condensate vortices could serve as laboratory stand-ins for spinning black holes and an expanding universe, phenomena that cannot be studied directly.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Paul Anderson
Wake Forest University, NC·Physics
Determine whether evaporation of primordial black holes during cosmic inflation could produce observable effects on the cosmic background radiation, and study other quantum effects of these early black holes.
Theodore Jacobson
University of Maryland, MD·Physics
Compute horizon entropy in quantum gravity using path integral methods, comparing the nonperturbative approach with semiclassical algebraic quantum field theory and examining the near-horizon imaginary-time method.
Gong Chen
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Mathematics & Statistics·Early-career
Determine whether multi-solitons, solutions made of several solitary waves at once, are stable and unique in nonlinear dispersive equations, using PDE, harmonic analysis and spectral theory.
The school
University of Massachusetts: 28 labs on PI Pages, $282M a year on research, 337 research doctorates a year.
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