PICS Colloquium: Modelling active matter on large length and time scales

Abstract: Active matter consists of particles that do work on their environment, for example by propelling themselves through a solvent. Fluids made from many interacting self-propelled particles have become popular as models of non-equilibrium matter: they are challenging for theory and computation because heir steady states cannot be derived by minimizing a free energy, nor any other thermodynamic potential. I will discuss their behaviour on large length and time scales, including possibilities for dynamical pattern formation, glassy behavior, and surface phase transitions (wetting).

Bio: Robert Jack is Professor of Statistical Mechanics at the University of Cambridge, with a joint appointment between the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry. His research aims to understand large-scale collective dynamics of complex systems from physics and chemistry, including fluctuations and rare events as well as their typical behavior. This is based on a combination of theoretical and computational methods.