Active Matter

One may thinks of biological systems, ranging from the scale of molecular motors within the cell, to the species of large animals, but the family of active systems also includes abiotic systems that are all forms of robots as for example artificial swimmers and walkers.

In the presence of a large number of such interacting units, spectacular collective behaviors can emerge spontaneously. Understanding these phenomena and the ability to reproduce and control them is a major challenge of modern statistical physics.

We study the motion mechanisms, the "thermodynamic" properties of active liquids, the emergence of collective motion, and finally the dense, crystalline or glassy phases.

Our favorite systems of interest are :