Bernard Shizgal

Professor Emeritus

Office: Wesbrook W124
Office Phone: (604) 822-3997
Lab(s): Wesbrook W30
Lab Phone(s): (604) 822-6549

FAX: (604) 822-2847
Email: shizgal@chem.ubc.ca

Curriculum Vitae: B.Sc., McGill (1964); Ph.D., Columbia (M. Karplus, 1968); Postdoctoral, Leiden (P. Mazur, 1968-69) and British Columbia (R.F. Snider, 1969-70). Killam Research Fellowship (1987). Fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (1984, 1987, 1994, 1995, 1997, 2004). Visiting Professor, Univ. Aix-Marseille, Univ. de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, Institute for Space and Astronautical Scence (Japan), Univ. Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Univ. Libre de Bruxelles, Univ. of Hokkaido (Japan), Communications Research Laboratory (Japan).

Theoretical: Kinetic theory of gases with application to chemically reactive systems; stochastic processes; atmospheric and space science; modeling of cardiac arhythmias; spectral methods in transport theory and qunatum problems, and resolution of Gibbs phenomenon.

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Research/Teaching Interests

The research work involves basic investigations in statistical mechanics with applications to atmospheric and space scie nce, ion and electron transport, chemical kinetics including hot atom reactions, stochastic processes, and rarefied gas dynamics.

The basis for most of the work is the Boltzmann equation or Fokker-Planck equation for the distribution function or probability density function. An important aspect of the work is the development of new methods of solution of the transport equations. A combination of analytical and numerical techniques is employed. In recent years, a Quadrature Discretization Method (QDM) has been used with considerable success in the solution of kinetic theory as well as quantum mechanical problems.

The QDM of solution of the Boltzmann equation is employed to determine the distribution functions in a variety of physical situations. These include the velocity distribution of ions in suitable moderators; the relaxation of electrons in atomic and molecular systems; the reaction and relaxation of hot atoms; diffusion in bistable potentia ls and the escape of atomic and molecular species from the atmospheres of the planets.

Work is in progress towards an accurate solution of the Boltzmann equation for a planetary atmosphere including the escape of lighter constituents. The nonthermal escape of atomic and molecular species from the atmospheres of Earth, Mars and Venus is also considered.

A number of physical situations such as reaction rates in solution, optical bistability in lasers, reaction diffusion equations in modelling cardiac arrhythmias and other diffusive-type processes are studied with the Kramers and/or Fokker-Planck equations. Efficient methods of solution of these equations have been developed.

Recent work includes the development of the Inverse Polynomial Reconstruction Method (IPRM) in the resolution of Gibbs phenomenon. This new method for the removal of spurious oscillations in Fourier representations will provide a new method for the reconstruction of images in tomography.