Laplacian Growth, Elliptic Growth, and Singularities of the Schwarz Potential

The Schwarz function has played an elegant role in understanding and in generating new examples of exact solutions to the Laplacian growth (or "Hele- Shaw") problem in the plane. The guiding principle in this connection is the fact that "non-physical" singularities in the "oil domain" of the Schwarz function are stationary, and the "physical" singularities obey simple dynamics. We give an elementary proof that the same holds in any number of dimensions for the Schwarz potential, introduced by D. Khavinson and H. S. Shapiro [17] (1989). A generalization is also given for the so-called "elliptic growth" problem by defining a generalized Schwarz potential. New exact solutions are constructed, and we solve inverse problems of describing the driving singularities of a given flow. We demonstrate, by example, how \mathbb{C}^n - techniques can be used to locate the singularity set of the Schwarz potential. One of our methods is to prolong available local extension theorems by constructing "globalizing families". We make three conjectures in potential theory relating to our investigation

Random Matrices in 2D, Laplacian Growth and Operator Theory

Since it was first applied to the study of nuclear interactions by Wigner and Dyson, almost 60 years ago, Random Matrix Theory (RMT) has developed into a field of its own within applied mathematics, and is now essential to many parts of theoretical physics, from condensed matter to high energy. The fundamental results obtained so far rely mostly on the theory of random matrices in one dimension (the dimensionality of the spectrum, or equilibrium probability density). In the last few years, this theory has been extended to the case where the spectrum is two-dimensional, or even fractal, with dimensions between 1 and 2. In this article, we review these recent developments and indicate some physical problems where the theory can be applied.Comment: 88 pages, 8 figure