Associate Professor

• B.Sc., Ph.D. York

Contact Information

Office: C-3025
Phone: (709) 864-2474
Email: mevstigneev@mun.ca
Personal Home Page

Research - Condensed Matter Theory

A small object can be studied by numerically solving the equations of motion of its atoms. A big object can be treated by a continuous theory. I am mainly interested in those borderline situations where the object is too big to be amenable to molecular dynamics, but too small for continuous description. This length scale can be successfully dealt with by stochastic analysis. The trick is to focus on a few relevant degrees of freedom, and to consider the remaining irrelevant ones as sources of dissipative and random forces in the relevant equations of motion. My research has been focused on revealing some counterintuitive effects of noise. For instance, it turns out that noise can introduce order into the dynamics of a nonlinear system far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Examples of this noise-induced order are the stochastic resonance, ratchet effect, and absolute negative mobility. My further research interest is to apply the ideas of stochastic modeling to explain experimental findings in the fields of nanoscale friction and colloidal science. Last but not least, I am very much interested in deriving stochastic models from the underlying atomic equations of motion.