Douglas Rizzolo (University of Washington)
Title: A light gas particle in a gravitational field
Abstract: We investigate a model of light particle that moves in a gravitational field and reflects off of randomly placed heavy particles. We find multiple scaling regimes (none of which are standard Brownian scaling) that lead to nontrivial diffusive limits. The limiting diffusions are identified explicitly in terms of their generators and we characterize recurrence and transience phenomena both before and after taking limits. Based on joint work with Krzysztof Burdzy.