Annual Research Report 2015 Foreword 3

IntelligentIntelligent solutions solutions for for complex complex problems problems AnnualAnnual Research Research Report Report 2015 2015 2 Cover figure: Diffraction pattern of a chromium mask illuminated by a Gaussian beam. Edited by Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik (WIAS) Leibniz-Institut im Forschungsverbund Berlin e. V. Mohrenstraße 39 D – 10117 Berlin Germany ISSN 2198-5898 Berlin 2015 Fax: + 49 30 20372 303 E-Mail: [email protected] World Wide Web: http://www.wias-berlin.de/ Annual Research Report 2015 Foreword 3 The Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics, Leibniz Institute in Forschungsver- bund Berlin e.V. (WIAS, member of the Leibniz Association), presents its Annual Report 2015. It gives a general overview of the scientific life, as well as an account of the scientific progress made in 2015. Following a general introduction in part one, in its second part six selected scientific contributions, written for a broader public, highlight some results of outstanding importance. Finally, the third part presents the essential results of the research groups. Special attention was again devoted to the proper functioning of the IMU Secretariat. Its eager staff, headed by the WIAS Authorized Representative of the Director and IMU Treasurer Prof. Alexander Mielke, continued their work, serving mathematics and mathematicians all over the world. Mean- while, only five years after its official opening in February 2011, the IMU Secretariat at WIAS has become a well-known and well-accepted meeting point of the worldwide mathematical community, which has increased the international visibility of WIAS tremendously. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang König, In March 2015, the long and successful era of Prof. Jürgen Sprekels as the director of WIAS fi- Authorized Representative of nally terminated, without, however, a new director having been appointed. This unfortunate sit- the Director uation hampered the institute’s prospects to make far-reaching decisions for its future development, which was even more unfortunate since also the future of Research Group 7 needed forward- looking decisions, because its current head, Prof. Wolfgang Dreyer, will retire in March 2016. The official tasks were taken over by two equally Authorized Representatives of the Director, Prof. Alexan- der Mielke and myself. As can be seen from this report, the institute was flourishing in 2015 on the accustomed high level, but nevertheless, long-range decisions had to wait until the new director would have taken office. Fortunately, this has now, at the beginning of 2016, happened, and the institute is sorting out all the promising possibilities for shaping its future. But let me come back to the year 2015, in which many positive things happened in and to WIAS. The evaluation of mid-2017 already threw its shadow, as the audit of the Scientific Board took place in Fall 2015, which is a kind of “dress rehearsal” for the evaluation and an important test for the scientific performance. The preparations for the audit have bound a lot of resources for months, as some 500 pages had to be filled, containing programs, concepts, facts, and figures. However, it was really worth it, since the event itself made all colleagues stand together and work hard one for another, and created a kind of institute’s spirit. Even better, also the Scientific Advisory Board was very positively impressed by the output of WIAS of the last years and found highly praising words in its report. The prospects for the evaluation in 2017 are very good, but a lot of additional work will have to be done on the way! WIAS is named after the famous Berlin mathematician Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (1815– 1897), whose importance for the foundations of the area of Analysis cannot be overestimated. In 2015, the institute celebrated Weierstrass’s 200th birthday. In order to honor him, Prof. Sprekels and myself edited a Festschrift with the Springer-Verlag containing nine original essays written by eminent mathematics historians. Moreover, precisely on the day of Weierstrass’s 200th birthday, WIAS organized a festive event in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, at which a number of esteemed speakers gave speeches, among them Germany’s Minister for Research and Education, Prof. Johanna Wanka. In the scientific part of this event, the nine authors gave accounts on their Festschrift contributions. About 130 invitees enjoyed the event, which put a milestone in the public awareness of the institute. Annual Research Report 2015 4 Foreword Even though 2014 had been a year of records for WIAS regarding publications, preprints, promo- tions, and third-party funds, the results of 2015 were not far behind, if not even exceeding, the marks that were set in 2014, as one can read in detail in the facts-and-figures part of this report. All important indicators of scientific productivity and quality have been on a comparable level; the success story of WIAS continued. From a great number of successes, let me pick out the award of the EU project MIMESIS – Mathe- matics and Materials Science for Steel Production and Manufacturing, a European Industrial Doc- torate (EID) project in the programme Innovative Training Networks (ITN) and part of the Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions. This structured doctorate program will be entirely run by WIAS and will be headed by the head of Research Group 4, Prof. Dietmar Hömberg. Another WIAS-associated re- searcher who received high distinction in 2015 is Prof. Peter Friz, not only the head of a new DFG Research Unit, but also the new holder of an ERC consolidator grant, both in the main field of one of the 2014 Fields medalists, Martin Hairer (Warwick), a close colleague of Peter Friz. A substantial part of his research activities will be carried out at WIAS. The Young Scientists’ Group Modeling of Damage Processes under the leadership of Dr. Christiane Kraus, which was founded in 2012 following a recommendation of the institute’s Scientific Advi- sory Board, continued their work with great success. This group was founded as a measure of WIAS to promote women in leadership positions. The first goal of this measure had already in 2013 been achieved, when the other head, Dr. Dorothee Knees, received a W3-professorship in Kassel, but it was in 2015 that also the second part of the goal was realized: Also Dr. Kraus received an offer for a professorship, in Würzburg. This success shows on the one hand that WIAS is a hotbed for young researchers, in particular female ones, and on the other hand that the appointment of young promising people as heads of an own group with responsibility for the education of Ph.D. students and young postdocs significantly increases their prospects. WIAS has observed this with great in- terest and has started intense discussions about adopting the constitution of such groups in the institute’s general policy as a structuring measure. The institute is committed to the implementation of the legally binding German policies and stan- dards to achieve the goal of gender equality. In 2015, the institute defended for the second time the “audit berufundfamilie” (audit job and family) quality seal that it received in December 2013. But beyond that, in 2015 more actions took place, the most important being the employees atti- tude survey and the enactment of an employment agreement. Besides these important events of the year 2015, WIAS continued its scientific work, further con- solidating its leading position in the mathematical community as a center of excellence in the treatment of complex applied problems. Several scientific breakthroughs were achieved, some of which will be detailed later in this report, and WIAS further expanded its scope into new applied problems from medicine, economy, science, and engineering. Besides the international workshops organized by the institute, the large number of invited lectures held by WIAS members at international meetings and research institutions, and the many renowned foreign visitors hosted by the institute, last year’s positive development is best reflected by the acquisition of grants: altogether, 55 additional co-workers (+ 4 outside WIAS; Dec. 31, 2015) could be financed from grants. Thirteen international workshops organized by WIAS evidenced the institute’s reputation and its role as an attractive meeting place for international scientific exchange and collaboration. In addi- Annual Research Report 2015 Foreword 5 tion, WIAS members (co-)organized numerous scientific meetings throughout the world. In addition to these “global” activities, on the “local” scale WIAS intensified its well-established cooperation with the other mathematical institutions in Berlin, with the main attention directed toward the three Berlin universities. The highlight in this respect was also in 2015 the joint opera- tion of the Research Center MATHEON “Mathematics for key technologies” located at the Technische Universität Berlin and currently funded by the “Einstein Foundation Berlin” in the framework of the “Einstein Center for Mathematics” (ECMath). WIAS is committed to the success of the center by pro- viding considerable financial and personal resources; several members of WIAS play key roles in the scientific administration of the MATHEON. Another continuing success story for the mathematical community of Berlin is the “Berlin Mathe- matical School” (BMS), which was extended until 2017 in the framework of the German “Exzellenz- initiative 2012” (competition for excellence). The BMS is a graduate school for advanced mathematical studies that brings together the capacities of all mathematical institutions in Berlin to attract excellent doctoral students from all over the world. Also within the BMS, several WIAS members took long-term responsibilities for the education of the students and the organization of the school. Besides these major activities, and besides the cooperation with the universities through the man- ifold teaching activities of its members, WIAS initiated and participated in successful applications for Collaborative Research Centers, Priority Programs, and Research Training Groups of the German Research Foundation (DFG).

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