Overview
Materials science, including crackling noise and avalanches in magnetic systems, tweed in shape-memory alloys, accelerated simulations of surface growth; glasses, including metallic glasses, low temperature glasses, slow relaxation, and scaling theories of the glass transition; disordered systems, including Griffiths phase in spin glasses, spin glasses on the Bethe lattice, sliding charge-density waves; liquid crystals; Blue Phases as networks of defect lines and in curved space; boojums in chiral smectic films; quantum instanton methods for atomic tunneling; early Berry's phase work in high-temperature superconductors; atomic tunneling from an STM/AFM tip; theory of vortex core states in superconductors; dynamical systems, including transition to chaos from quasiperiodic motion using renormalization group; noise in crumpling paper; dynamics of cell membranes and twisted DNA.
Research Focus
We've recently been using differential geometry tools to study how multiparameter models in many fields of physics (from systems biology to cosmology) have collective behavior which depends only loosely on their parameters. These "sloppy models" work for the same reasons that underlie continuum limits and the renormalization group. We have a new approach to understanding rigidity transitions, which have recently been applied to glasses, granular materials, foams, and biological tissues. And we are developing nonlinear renomalization-group methods for understanding the properties of systems near and far from continuous phase transitions.
Graduate Students
Stephen Thornton
Awards and Honors
- Sloan Research Fellow, 1985
- Presidential Young Investigator Award, 1985
Professional Experience
- Postdoctoral research associate, Cornell University, 1981-84.
- Postdoctoral research associate, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1981-84.
- Assistant Professor, Physics, Cornell University, 1984-89.
- Associate Professor, Physics, Cornell University, 1989-95.
- Professor, Physics, Cornell University, 1995-present.
Publications
s, Katherine N. Quinn, Colin B. Clement, Francesco De Bernardis, Michael D. Niemack, and James P. Sethna, . See also (Cornell Chronicle article by Melanie Lefkowitz), and (Times of India, June 26, 2019).
, Katherine N. Quinn, Heather Wilber, Alex Townsend, and James P. Sethna 122, 158302 (2019)
, Jaron Kent-Dobias and James P Sethna, 98, 063306 (2018).
, Archishman Raju, Colin B. Clement, Lorien X. Hayden, Jaron P. Kent-Dobias, Danilo B. Liarte, D. Zeb Rocklin and James P. Sethna, 9, 021014 (2019).
, James P. Sethna, Matthew K. Bierbaum, Karin A. Dahmen, Carl P. Goodrich, Julia R. Greer, Lorien X. Hayden, Jaron P. Kent-Dobias, Edward D. Lee, Danilo B. Liarte, Xiaoyue Ni, Katherine N. Quinn, Arichishman Raju, D. Zeb Rocklin, Ashivni Shekhawat, Stefano Zapperi,
, Lorien X. Hayden, Ricky Chachra, Alexander A. Alemi, Paul H. Ginsparg, and James P. Sethna, . See also our .
, Danilo B. Liarte, Matthew Bierbaum, Ricardo A. Mosna, Randall D. Kamien, and James P. Sethna, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 147802 (2016), (Cover story and Editor's Choice for PRL, , and , by Lisa Zyga at Phys.org.)
, Alexander A. Alemi, Matthew Bierbaum, Christopher R. Myers, and James P. Sethna . Much national media coverage (over 75 articles in the first week, starting with Popular Science, New Scientist, and the Washington Post; over half a million hits on both the Zombie simulator and the photo views.)
, Mark K. Transtrum, Benjamin B. Machta, Kevin S. Brown, Bryan C. Daniels, Christopher R. Myers, and James P. Sethna,
Benjamin B. Machta, Ricky Chachra, Mark K. Transtrum, James P. Sethna, , . See also in the Cornell Chronicle (Anne Ju) and Kathryn McGill's vblog from .
Jesse L. Silverberg, Matthew Bierbaum, James P. Sethna, and Itai Cohen, . See Jesse Silverberg's . Extensive press coverage (, , , , , ...); full listing at
In the news
- Spring 2024 Bethe Lecture bridges physics and computer science
- Three faculty elected fellows of American Physical Society
- New Frontier Grants push boundaries in A&S research
- Ten A&S faculty honored with endowed professorships
- Researchers model avalanches in two dimensions
- Data visualization could reveal nature of the universe
- Next-gen particle accelerator is aim of Bright Beams work
- Microscope becomes gauge to measure forces within crystals
