Large deviations rain showers and planet formation

by Michael Wilkinson

at Condensed Matter Theory Seminar

Wed, 09 May 2018, 13:30
Physics building (#54) room 207

Abstract

Rainfall from ice free cumulus clouds requires collisions of very large numbers of microscopic droplets to create every raindrop and the collision rate for the first few droplet coalescences is typically less than one per hour The onset of rain showers can be surprisingly rapid much faster than the mean time required for a single collision Large deviation theory is used to explain this fact I shall also discuss whether these results apply to planet formation If planets grow by accretion of dust particles this must happen very rapidly because objects of roughly meter size spiral into the star over a timescale of less than a thousand years For this problem large deviation theory is less promising I discuss an alternative approach

Created on 29-04-2018 by Bar Lev, Yevgeny (ybarlev)
Updaded on 29-04-2018 by Bar Lev, Yevgeny (ybarlev)