Talk Abstract: The study of the ultrafast structure and dynamics of systems at the atomic length scale is at the heart of many scientific fields, ranging from condensed matter physics to structural biology. X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFELs) provide a unique opportunity to tackle this problem and gain new insights. The ultrashort, bright pulses are used to take snapshot images of millions of particles, one at a time, which can then be used to learn their structural landscape. This approach also allows one to study dynamics which are not precisely triggered by an external pulse but are spontaneously nucleated by internal fluctuations. I will talk about our initial steps towards this goal, as well as challenges and opportunities.

Speaker Biography: Kartik Ayyer is a Max Planck Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg, Germany. His research is focussed on the structural dynamics and imaging of nanoscale systems, from nanoparticles to proteins. The group works at the interface of experiments and computational methods and focuses on the development of new data-driven experimental techniques and associated reconstruction algorithms to gain access to previously unobserved properties of such systems. After studying Engineering Physics at IIT Delhi, Kartik obtained his PhD in Physics from Cornell University in 2014 and had a postdoctoral position at Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) till 2018. ____________________________________________________