Monday, May 12th 2014, 4:00 p.m.
Ludwig-Boltzmann-Lecture Hall, ground floor, Strudlhofgasse 4, 1090 Vienna
ABSTRACT: I would like to present a mathematician's view to crystals at zero-temperature. In particular, I will introduce some problems related to the minimization of pairwise and three-body interaction potentials. The issue will be that of rigorously identifying local ad global geometries of ground-state configurations. I will present an overview of the few available results, especially in connection with carbon structures, and I will discuss the challenges of some of the many open problems.
