This series of talks aims at encouraging networking among postdocs and promoting the exchange of ideas for potential collaborations. We have started this series of relatively informal seminars where the postdocs from the two Departments, and occasionally from other local universities, can showcase their research and foster relationships and collaborations between the two Departments and other universities.
Please note: These seminars are given by postdocs, but are intended for all types of audience (students are welcome!).
 

Date: Fri. Apr. 05
Time: 11:00 am

Speaker: Gary Nave, BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado 

Title: Flying snakes, attracting manifolds, and the trajectory divergence rate

Abstract: Inspired by the gliding behavior of the paradise tree snake, Chrysopelea paradisi, I will discuss a simplified model for passive aerodynamic flight which gives an intuitive and dynamically rich 2 degree-of-freedom system. Within this model, all trajectories collapse quickly onto an attracting codimension-1 manifold in velocity space: the terminal velocity manifold. This curve provides geometric insights into the possible dynamics of passively descending bodies such as gliding animals or falling leaves. As a tool to calculate and understand structures like the terminal velocity manifold, I introduce a scalar quantity, the trajectory divergence rate, which rapidly approximates attracting invariant manifolds based on an instantaneous vector field. This diagnostic may be applied to approximate a variety of structures including slow manifolds and hyperbolic Lagrangian coherent structures.

More info on these seminars can be found via the following link
https://csel.cs.colorado.edu/~vaba3353/seminars.html