Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, UK

Random Walks in Random Environment
(18-22 August 2003)

Supported by The European Science Foundation (ESF) through its project
"Random Dynamics in Spatially Extended Systems"

in association with the Newton Institute programme entitled
Interaction and Growth in Complex Stochastic Systems (21 July to 19 
December 2003)

Organisers:   Erwin Bolthausen (University Zürich), and Alain-Sol Sznitman 
(ETH Zürich).

Theme of Conference:   Much is now known on models of random walks in a 
symmetric random environment. This leads to a diffusion-type behavior with 
effectively a non-random diffusion matrix. The phenomena of effective 
self-averaging for random walks in a symmetric random environment is 
closely related to the homogenization problem for second order elliptic 
operators with random coefficients. Most results in this area were obtained 
in 1980's.  However, the general asymmetric case of a random walk in a 
random environment cannot be treated by similar techniques, and remains 
largely open in more than one dimension. There has recently been 
considerable progress in particular concerning random walks in random 
environment with ballistic behavior and large deviation principles for 
random walks in random environments. But many questions are still open. For 
instance, it is still not known whether for large enough perturbations one 
can get non-diffusive behavior for high
dimension.  Also, almost nothing is known rigorously in the two-dimensional 
case.

Of considerable interest are also random walks in a random potentials. 
Here, if the potential is time independent, the asymptotic behavior can be 
non-diffusive, and particles move to a ‘trap’ where they stay for a long 
time.  At the same time, the important case of a time-dependent potential 
is much less understood, although there are interesting recent developments.

Some closely related topics are: Random walks in random sceneries, directed 
polymers in random environments (which are connected with a wide class of 
growth models), and aging phenomena.

Speakers include:   M Barlow (British Columbia); I Benjamini (Weizmann); 
J-P Bouchaud (Saclay); F Comets (Jussieu);          Th Delmotte (Toulouse); 
B Derrida (ENS, Paris); N Gantert (Karlsruhe); I Goldsheid (QMW); F den 
Hollander (Eurandom); D Ioffe (Haifa); H Kesten (Cornell); P Mathieu 
(Marseille); F Merkl (Leiden); SA Molchanov (North Carolina); V 
Sidoravicius (Rio de Janeiro); YA G Sinai (Princeton); S Volkov (Bristol); 
O Zeitouni (Minnesota); M Zerner (Stanford).

Location & Cost:   The workshop will take place at the Newton Institute and 
accommodation for participants will be provided in single study bedrooms 
with shared bathroom at Wolfson Court.  The workshop package, costing £375, 
includes accommodation, breakfast and dinner from dinner on Sunday 17 
August 2003 until breakfast on Saturday 23 August 2003, and lunch and 
refreshments during the days that lectures take place.

Further Information and Applications Forms are available from the WWW at:

http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/programs/IGS/igsw02.html

Completed application forms should be sent to Tracey Andrew at the above 
address, or via email to: [log in para visualizar]

Closing Date for the receipt of applications is 31 March 2003