29.04.2008 (Tuesday)

Extreme Value Statistics, Integer Partitions and Bose Gas

Regular Seminar Satya Majumdar (Paris XI)

at:
16:00 Brunel U.
room M128
abstract:

In this talk I will first briefly review the extreme value statistics of independent random variables and show how three limiting distributions (Gumbel, Frechet and Weibull distributions) emerge there. Next I'll discuss the celebrated Integer Partition problem of Hardy and Ramanujan and its connection to the ideal Bose gas. We will see how the same three limiting distributions of extreme value statistics appear in the Integer Partion/Bose gas problem. The connection between these three different problems respectively in probability theory, number theory and statistical physics is intriguing and fascinating.