Summer School - Large Fluctuations and Extreme Events: Theory and Applications, 5-9 October 2015, TU Dresden, Germany

Many catastrophies which make it into the headlines of our mass media are extreme events in a dynamical sense: They are huge magnitude fluctuations in systems which are in permanent motion and where fluctuations are part of their normal behavior, only on a smaller scale. Evident examples for such phenomena are related to weather such as storms, extreme precipitation, long droughts, temperature extremes. Extreme events in the above sense also occur in economic systems, such as stock market crashes or bankruptcy of major banks. In technological systems, power outages as consequences of transmission network failures can be extreme in coverage and occur when fluctuations in supply of (renewable) energy and consumption of energy exceed controllable limits. Finally, also most biological systems are subject to permanent flutuations, and extreme events occur in population dynamics as the phenomenon of mass extinctions of species, or in brain function as epileptic seizures.

This interdisciplinary international summer school on large fluctuations and extreme events will address these issues along the three lines Statistical Methods, Mathematical Results, and Physical perspective. From the statistical side, the school will introduce relevant concepts for the statistical characterization of extremes and for the interrelation of successive events. The need for such methods is given by the relevance of mitigation and prediction of extreme events. As one example, for flood protection it is essential to know the flood levels to be expected within a given time interval. Statistical methodology for such tasks includes Extreme Value Statistics, Theory of Large Deviations, Detrended Fluctuation Analysis. From the mathematical side, the school should provide recent results on dynamical systems and on stochastic processes, which are models for systems with large fluctuations. A particular emphasis will here lie on temporal correlations in dynamically generated fluctuations. Finally, under physical perspective we summarise studies and investigations of specific systems, either models or real world, and physical concepts allowing for extremes. Particular mechanisms leading to extremes will be exemplified, and the potential for early warning will be explored in a couple of examples, e.g. the concept of Self Organised Criticality as one specific concept for the generation of unbounded magnitudes will be among these.

We cordially invite Ph.D. students and postdocs to apply for participation in the Summer School. Due to the Summer School’s wide range of subjects, there will be no restriction to specific disciplines. However, participants have to be able to follow mathematical lectures as well as physical reasoning. It would also be helpful for participants to have some programming experience in order to be able to apply their newly gained knowledge to experimental data in their field or to be able to perform numerical studies of their own models. We aim at persons who are interested in the topic, either already working on issues related to extreme events or planning to enter this field.

To apply, please fill in the form and submit your application by July 19th, 2015.

The participants will be selected by the organizers based on the information supplied in the electronic application form. 9 participants will be selected for a 20-minute presentation of their scientific work. The selection will be based on scientific merit and relevance of the topic for the school.

Notification of acceptance to the Summer School will be from August 14th, 2015 (including selection for presenting a talk).

There is no participation fee; local accomodation will be provided; the participants may apply for (partial) travel funding. The granting of this financial support will be dependent on the Summer School’s budget. Notification about financial support will also be from August 14th, 2015.

Local participants are of course also very welcome. They do not need to register, but are asked to inform the organisers by e-mail (ssee2015@mailbox.tu-dresden.de) by September 27th, 2015, about which events they would like to attend.