Time-Dependent Fluid-Structure Interaction

The problem of determining the manner in which an incoming acoustic wave is scattered by an elastic body immersed in a fluid is one of central importance in detecting and identifying submerged objects. The problem is generally referred to as a fluid-structure interaction and is mathematically formulated as a time-dependent transmission problem. In this paper, we consider a typical fluid-structure interaction problem by using a coupling procedure which reduces the problem to a nonlocal initial-boundary problem in the elastic body with a system of integral equations on the interface between the domains occupied by the elastic body and the fluid. We analyze this nonlocal problem by the Lubich approach via the Laplace transform, an essential feature of which is that it works directly on data in the time domain rather than in the transformed domain. Our results may serve as a mathematical foundation for treating time-dependent fluid-structure interaction problems by convolution quadrature coupling of FEM and BEM

Semiquantum Chaos and the Large N Expansion

We consider the dynamical system consisting of a quantum degree of freedom $A$ interacting with $N$ quantum oscillators described by the Lagrangian \bq L = {1\over 2}\dot{A}^2 + \sum_{i=1}^{N} \left\{{1\over 2}\dot{x}_i^2 - {1\over 2}( m^2 + e^2 A^2)x_i^2 \right\}. \eq In the limit $N \rightarrow \infty$, with $e^2 N$ fixed, the quantum fluctuations in $A$ are of order $1/N$. In this limit, the $x$ oscillators behave as harmonic oscillators with a time dependent mass determined by the solution of a semiclassical equation for the expectation value \VEV{A(t)}. This system can be described, when \VEV{x(t)}= 0, by a classical Hamiltonian for the variables G(t) = \VEV{x^2(t)}, $\dot{G}(t)$, A_c(t) = \VEV{A(t)}, and $\dot{A_c}(t)$. The dynamics of this latter system turns out to be chaotic. We propose to study the nature of this large-$N$ limit by considering both the exact quantum system as well as by studying an expansion in powers of $1/N$ for the equations of motion using the closed time path formalism of quantum dynamics.Comment: 30 pages, uuencoded LaTeX file (figures included