Random Matrices, Random Growth Processes and Statistical Physics: September 7 – 11, 2015

Organized by Dan Romik, Brian Rider, and Alexander Soshnikov
Dates: September 7 – 11, 2015

Attendee List Download Talk ScheduleView Videos

The first day of the workshop (September 7th, 2015) is the U.S. holiday of Labor Day. This will be an informal day during the workshop with one or two morning talks and a social event in the afternoon. Please note: There will be no staff available on this day.

Over the past 20 years, many beautiful connections have emerged between random matrix theory, integrable systems, statistical physics and random growth models in probability theory. For example, the Tracy-Widom distribution and its variants, originally discovered in the mid-1990’s in the context of the study of maximal eigenvalues of random matrix ensembles, have been shown to appear in many other seemingly unrelated contexts in connection with the longest increasing subsequence problem, the Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process, last passage percolation and other phenomena. Some important recent developments have been the exact computation of the probability distribution of solutions of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation and the first mathematically rigorous proof that this equation belongs to the so-called KPZ universality class; and the measurement of KPZ and Tracy-Widom fluctuations in an experimental physics setting involving turbulent liquid crystals.

The goal of this workshop is to bring together experts in the fields related to these exciting developments for a fruitful interchange of ideas. The meeting will also serve to honor Craig A. Tracy, one of the leading figures in the field, for his many contributions to statistical physics and probability theory, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

The journal SIGMA is preparing to make a special issue in honor of Percy Deift and Craig Tracy. See the following link regarding how to submit a paper.

Please note Monday is a holiday, no staff is available that day

Talk Schedule


Time Title Presenter Location
10:00am “Branching graphs and integrable probability” Alexei Borodin SCGP 102
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am “Discovering the Tracy-Widom distribution in discrete nonlinear wave equations” Herbert Spohn SCGP 102





Random Matrices 8:27:15