Physics and Astronomy Colloquium
Dense Active Matter
Presented by Julia Yeomans, University of Oxford
In his 1944 book, "What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell", Erwin Schroedinger wrote living matter evades the decay to equilibrium.
Active matter theories, which describe persistent non-equilibrium behaviour, are being increasingly applied to biological processes. Dense active matter shows complex collective behaviour, and mesoscale turbulence, the emergence of chaotic flow structures characterised by high vorticity and self-propelled topological defects. I shall discuss how the ideas of active matter are suggesting new ways of interpreting cell motility, and how active topological defects may help to regulate turnover in epithelial cell layers and contribute to controlling the structure of bacterial colonies.
3:30 pm, Friday, November 11, 2022
Via Zoom. Please take the Satisfaction Survey,
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