TU Ilmenau Citizens Campus

Friday, June 02, 2023, 15:00, Faraday-Lecture Hall

Prof. Dr. Jörg SchumacherTU Ilmenau

Mesoscale patterns in turbulent convection with machine learning and quantum computing

Turbulent convection processes in nature are often characterized by an apparent order in the so-called mesoscale region between the smallest and largest flow scales. Prominent examples include granules and supergranules on the solar surface and cloud streets in the lower layers of the atmosphere. Where do these regular patterns come from? What role do they play in heat transport in the flow? How can machine learning algorithms or quantum computing help to better model and effectively analyze these structure formation processes?

Increased use of artificial intelligence in this area of research could lead to improved models of solar activity and more accurate weather and climate predictions in the future.

In his lecture, Prof. Dr. Jörg Schumacher, Head of the Department of Fluid Mechanics at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, will explain these questions in a common-sense way, starting from basic considerations, while providing interesting insights into his current research.

He received an ERC Advanced Grant, the most prestigious research funding of the European Union, in 2022 for his excellent cutting-edge research on fluid turbulence. With this grant, the scientist can now use super and quantum computers to calculate and analyze flow patterns as they occur near the surface of the sun. Increased use of artificial intelligence in this area of research could lead to improved models of solar activity and more accurate weather and climate predictions in the future. The MesoComp project ("Order at the Mesoscale: Connecting supercomputingof compressible convection to classical and quantum machine learning") at TU Ilmenau started in January 2023.