Project title: Emergent Dynamical Steady States of Active Polymer-Like Matter

Are you a highly motivated student with a strong interest in statistical mechanics and soft active matter? The group of Dr. Sara Jabbari Farouji at the Institute for Theoretical Physics and part of Computational Soft Matter Lab is seeking an excellent and ambitious PhD candidate to carry out interdisciplinary research on emergent collective dynamics of active polymer-like matter which combines analytical and computational methods.

Active matter is a young field of research which aims at understanding collective properties of non-equilibrium systems made of self-driven constituents; e.g. bird flocks or bacterial swarms in terms of interplay between self-drive and interactions. It has been found that some aspects of collective behavior can indeed be captured by models based on a minimal set of interaction rules, which is now at the heart of the research area of active matter.

For instance, the Vicsek model of self-propelled point-like particles that have alignment interactions with their neighbors reveals a dynamical transition from a disordered gas-like state to a flocking state in which particles collectively move in the same direction. However, many spectacular patterns of collective organization in real systems like collective behavior cellular tissues of entangled aggregates of worms cannot be captured by such minimal models. In these cases, the deformability of the constituent particles matters and should be considered in non-equilibrium modeling.

In this PhD research project, we aim to go beyond the proverbial spherical cow models of active matter to predict the remarkable collective properties of systems for which flexibility of self-driven units and interparticle interactions are jointly at play. You will focus on active polymer-like matter, paramount examples of which include molecular motor-driven chromosomal DNA and actin filaments and worms. You will combine theoretical and computational approaches from statistical physics of active matter and polymer physics to uncover the consequences of flexibility of active constituents on collective organization and locomotion of active polymer-like matter.

More details about application procedure can be found here.

Contacts:
Dr. Sara Jabbari Farouji (s.jabbarifarouji@uva.nl)