GIG: Applied Mathematics of Nonlinear Optics

9510728 Cole This award will provide requests infrastructure support for an interdisciplinary team working on a broad array of theoretical and applied problems in nonlinear optics. The group consists of applied mathematicians, physicists, and industrial scientists, and the problems being researched are closely connected with applications such as laser technology, fiber-optics communications, all-optical data transmission systems, and composite nonlinear optical materials. The infrastructure support will provide for an intensive series of seminars, mini courses, and workshops on nonlinear optics, for graduate research assistants, postdoctoral fellows, and long-term visitors. The proposed projects cover a wide range of problems, such as dynamics and operation of gas lasers and fiber lasers, nonlinear optics of pulses in standard and erbium-doped fibers, dynamics of light in second-harmonia generating media, optical properties of composite materials, and light propagation in periodic media The tools to be used in the formulation and analysis of these problems include asymptotic expansions and perturbation theory, accurate numerical computations, soliton and inverse-scattering techniques, nonlinear analytical estimates, and dynamical systems methods. The diverse expertise of its members will enable the group to successfully complete the investigations of the proposed projects, and shed light on nonlinear optical problems from new angles that could only come from such unique interdisciplinary connections.