Physics (Internal)

Statistical Physics of Active Matter

This event is part of the Biophysics/Condensed Matter Seminar Series.

Abstract: Over the past few years, there has been a growing interest among physicists for 'active systems', in which energy is taken from the environment to produce self-propulsion at the single particle level. Active particles, such as bacteria, self-diffusiophoretic colloids or actin filaments in motility assays, are thus strongly out-of-equilibrium and exhibit much richer behaviors that their passive counterpart. In this talk I will review recent theoretical progresses regarding the steady-state distribution of active particles and discuss various mechanisms of pattern formation that have no counterpart in equilibrium systems.