Online Seminar Series on Critical Transitions in Complex Systems

Many complex systems such as turbulent thermo-fluid systems, climate systems, financial markets, power grids, and infectious diseases exhibit critical transitions where the system shifts abruptly from one state to another. Such critical transitions can have undesirable or even catastrophic consequences, including failure of space missions, power blackouts, extreme weather, extinction of species in ecosystems, pandemics, and sudden financial market crash.

Recent work has shown that there is indeed an architecture to such transitions. It may appear surprising that disparate phenomena such as the instability of a power grid, extreme climatic events, and a thermoacoustic transition could have anything in common. More often than not, the behavior of complex systems is independent of the details of the problem, with fundamentally different physical systems displaying similar dynamic behavior.

This seminar series plans to bring together experts from the applied and theoretical aspects of critical transitions. This series was started in September 2021, with the help of Ankit Sahay, Amitesh Roy, and the Office of Global Engagement at IIT Madras. The logistics are currently managed by Sanket Ambedkar and Ankit Sahay. We plan to have talks spread across a broad spectrum, ranging from, but not limited to, climate science to combustion to financial markets to ecology to epidemiology to neuroscience. The seminar series is aimed at disseminating state of the art in the prediction of critical transitions in these diverse fields of study, fostering international collaborations, and promoting discussion.

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For more information, kindly reach out to us at ctcs.iitm@gmail.com.