## Departmental PhD Thesis Exam – Kyle Thompson

Everyone is welcome to attend.  Refreshments will be served in the Math Lounge before the exam.

Thursday, April 21, 2016
2:10 p.m.
BA6183

PhD Candidate:  Kyle Thompson
Supervisor:  Bob Jerrard
Thesis title:  Dynamics of Superconducting Interfaces

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Abstract:

We look for solutions to a two-component system of nonlinear wave equations with the properties that one component has an interface and the other is exponentially small except near the interface of the first component. The second component can be identified with a superconducting current confined to an interface. A formal analysis suggests that for suitable initial data, the energy of solutions concentrate about a codimension one timelike surface $\Gamma$ whose dynamics are coupled in a highly nonlinear way to the phase of the superconducting current.

We provide a rigorous verification of the predictions these formal arguments make for solutions with an equivariant symmetry in two dimensions subject to a non-degeneracy condition.

A copy of the thesis can be found here:  KThompson_Thesis