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Caltech

Chemical Engineering Seminar

Thursday, March 13, 2025
4:00pm to 5:00pm
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Spalding Laboratory 106 (Hartley Memorial Seminar Room)
Non-reciprocal active matter across scales
Ramin Golestanian, Professor, University of Oxford,

Abstract:

Broken action-reaction symmetry has been recently explored in active matter in the context of nonequilibrium phoretic interactions between catalytically active colloids and enzymes, and hydrodynamic interactions, among others. It has been shown to lead formation of self-propelled active molecules that break time-reversal symmetry, oscillating active complexes that break time-translation symmetry, chiral bound-states, and active phase separation with specified stoichiometry. Non-reciprocal interactions have been found to lead to rich physical phenomena involving various forms of spontaneous symmetry-breaking as well as the accompanying defect structures that destroy order. Recent applications of non-reciprocal active matter have revealed exotic behavior such as the appearance of effervescent traveling patterns and shape-shifting multifarious self-organization, spontaneous escape of kinetic barriers, dynamical pattern formation in quorum-sensing active matter, as well as implications of the physics of non-reciprocal interactions on the origin of life.

Biography:

Ramin Golestanian obtained his BSc from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, and his MSc and PhD from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS) in Zanjan. His PhD work was conducted under the remote supervision of Mehran Kardar from MIT, and was followed by an independent postdoctoral research fellowship at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has held academic positions at IASBS and the University of Sheffield and risen through the ranks until he became a Full Professor in 2007. Since 2010, he has been a Professor at the University of Oxford and since 2018 Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and Honorary Professor at the University of Göttingen. He has a broad interest in various aspects of nonequilibrium statistical physics, soft matter, and biological physics. Golestanian is distinguished for his work on active matter, and in particular, for his role in developing microscopic swimmers and active colloids.

For more information, please contact Matthew Buga by phone at 626-395-2423 or by email at mbuga@caltech.edu.