Scalar Active Matter: Field Theories, Phase Ordering and Fluid Dynamics

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• Mike Cates, Cambridge
• Thursday 04 February 2016, 13:45-15:00
• Theory Library.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Mike Gunn.

elf-propelled particles, such as bacteria and certain synthetic colloids, can show steady state behaviour that has no counterpart among systems in thermal equilibrium. An example is the gas-liquid phase separation of spherical self-propelled particles with purely repulsive interactions. These differences stem from absence of time reversal symmetry (also known as detailed balance) in the underlying dynamical equations. Since phenomena such as phase separation can be understood with scalar dynamical field theories (with names like Model B and Model H in the Hohenberg Halperin classification) it is interesting to ask how these theories are changed when microscopic time reversal symmetry is absent. I shall give some answers to this question and describe how such theories can help us understand the sometimes subtle behaviour of many-body systems without detailed balance.

This talk is part of the Theoretical Physics Seminars series.

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