Oceans and Multiplicative Ergodic Theorems

In many physical processes, one is interested in mixing and obstructions to mixing: warm air currents mixing with cold air; pollutant dispersal etc. Analogous questions arise in pure mathematics in dynamical systems and Markov chains. In this talk, I will describe the relationship between obstructions to mixing and eigenvectors of transition operators; in particular I will focus on recent work on the non-stationary case: when the Markov chain or dynamical system is non-homogeneous, or when the physical process is driven by external factors.

I will illustrate my talk with analysis of and data from ocean mixing.