Thursday, April 25, 1996, 2:00 p.m.

Herschel Rabitz
Department of Chemistry
Princeton University

Control Concepts for the Intervention and Interrogation of Molecular Dynamics

The active manipulation of molecular-scale dynamical events has been a long-standing challenge. Recent years have seen the establishment of the key principles of coherent manipulation of such events, especially through the use of optimal control theory. The relevant concepts will be reviewed, leading to the presentation of a unified formulation for the control (intervention) and inversion (interrogation) of molecular dynamical events. Some projections on the future directions of this field will be presented.