Research in the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics concerns complex dynamics, instabilities, chaos, and pattern formation in systems driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Diverse systems exhibit remarkably similar, sometimes even universal behavior. Studies in the Center of solid, fluid, granular, low-temperature gas, chemical, and biological systems involve laboratory experiments, numerical simulations, and theoretical analyses. Problems currently being examined include instabilities at fluid interfaces, dynamics of fluidized beds, spatial patterns and shock waves in granular flows, pattern formation in chemical reaction-diffusion systems, crack propagation in crystalline and amorphous materials, quantum chaos with ultra-cold atoms, nonlinear dynamics of bose condensates, general methods of laser cooling, viscoelasticity of actin networks, elastic properties of normal and pathological biological cells, and enhancement of neuronal growth.

The group includes six faculty members, five postdoctoral research associates, thirty three graduate students, and twelve undergraduates.