In the late 20th century, statistical physicists introduced a chemical reaction model called ballistic annihilation. In it, particles are placed randomly throughout the real line and then proceed to move at independently sampled velocities. Collisions result in mutual annihilation. Many results were inferred by physicists, but it wasn’t until recently that mathematicians joined in. I will describe my trajectory through this model. Expect tantalizing open questions.

This will be the last in his sequence of an introductory lecture on Hypocoercivity for Langevin dynamics. For those who have not attended the previous lectures and are familiar with Langevin dynamics, the talk should be accessible. We will continue our discussion on convergence to equilibrium for second-order Langevin dynamics using the Poincare approach. We'll recap convergence in H^1(\mu) and then we'll talk about the direct L^2(\mu) method of Dolbeault, Mouhot, and Schmeiser, also called the DMS approach.