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Active Matter
Leticia F. Cugliandolo and Gregory Schehr
Systems made of large assemblies of living or synthetic self-propelled constituents make up Active Matter. The individual motion rests on consuming energy taken from the environment. Unlike more traditional non-equilibrium systems, active matter does not rely on macroscopic driving: its unusual macroscopic physics emerges from drive at the particle level. These far-from-equilibrium systems exhibit a much richer phenomenology than their passive counterparts, and are the object of intensive research in particular because of their biological relevance. They also pose manifold fundamental statistical physics questions.
The group has contributed to elucidate the phase diagram, characterise the steady state structure, and understand the dynamics of two-dimensional many-body models of active matter. We have also studied various statistical properties of the stochastic processes executed by the so-called run-and-tumble particles.