Turgay Uzer

Regents' Professor Emeritus

Education

Ph. D., Harvard University, 1979

Research

Theoretical atomic, molecular, and chemical physics with nonlinear dynamics and chaos, Quantal, classical or semiclassical methods

My research interests lie at the broad interface of theoretical atomic, molecular, and chemical physics with nonlinear dynamics and chaos. Quantal, classical or semiclassical methods, are used to research the dynamics of microscopic (atomic/ molecular) systems whose classical behavior can exhibit chaos.

The application of nonlinear dynamics to the microscopic, quantal world of atoms and molecules has provided fascinating insights into their behavior. A thicket of experimental and/or theoretical data (spectral lines, energy levels, trajectories), usually conceals these insights. Classical and semiclassical methods (sometimes described with some humor as "postmodern"), are often unrivalled in providing an intuitive and computationally tractable approach to the study of such phenomena. Often, structures underlying a profusion of experimental or computational data can be uncovered in a single picture by combining the Correspondence Principle with the perturbation approaches developed by the giants of astronomy for planetary interactions to perform "celestial mechanics on a microscopic scale".

Other Publications

Yeazell, John, and Turgay Uzer. The Physics and Chemistry of Wave Packets. New York: Wiley, 2000. Print.

Erkoc, Sakir, and Turgay Uzer. Lecture Notes on Atomic and Molecular Physics. Singapore: World Scientific, 1996. Print.