Physics by the Lake

SEM-1: Analysis of the mechanical properties of smectic elastomers

James Adams (University of Surrey)

Liquid crystal elastomers are a novel material with an liquid crystalline degrees of freedom that can be manipulated by macroscopic deformations. They have novel elastic properties such as large spontaneous extension that have found uses in photoactivated microfluidic devices.

Smectic liquid crystals have a layered structure and a rigidly defined layer spacing, and so behave highly anisotropically. Smectic elastomers are anisotropic rubbery solids, that have remarkable elastic behaviour. They have have a threshold after which the rubber modulus drastically softens when stretched parallel to the layer normal. This softening is accompanied by the formation of microstructure in the rubber. In this talk I will give an overview of the modeling work of smectic elastomers, and present some recent 3-D x-ray scattering data that shows the rotation of the layer normals in the sample when it is strained.

James Adams is a lecturer at the University of Surrey, in the Soft Condensed Matter group. His research into the properties of liquid crystalline polymer networks where he has modeled the elastic response of smectic elastomer phases, and the flow properties of complex fluids such as polymer solutions. Recent work has focussed an the shear banding instability in polymer solutions during start up shear and large amplitude oscillatory shear.

SEM-2: Studying quantum mechanical nuclei with path integral molecular dynamics

Brent Walker (University College London)

Because atomic nuclei are much heavier than electrons, in performing atomistic simulations, it is very often possible to make the approximation that the nuclei are classical particles. In certain situations however, the fact that the nuclei are quantum mechanical can be significant. An effective way of taking into account the quantum mechanics of the nuclei, that integrates nicely with the "usual" atomistic methods (e.g. density functional theory), is path integral molecular dynamics (PIMD). In the talk, I will outline the PIMD method, and provide several examples of its use.

Brent is a post-doctoral researcher at the London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London. His area of research is computer simulations in condensed matter physics, with his current research focusing on applying path integral molecular dynamics to systems containing hydrogen. He has previously used density functional theory techniques to study the structures of liquid metal surfaces and interfaces, and has used time-dependent density functional theory to study the optical properties of semiconductor nanoparticle quantum dots.

SEM-3: A theoretical glimpse of complex structure in extremely dense matter

Chris Pickard (University College London)

SEM-4: Statistical mechanics of evolution and the map from sequence to function

Bhavin Khatri (University of Edinburgh)

My research interests are related to applying the theoretical techniques of soft matter and polymer physics to understand fundamental questions in biology. I am currently a postdoc in the soft matter group at the University of Edinburgh, where I am interested in how stochasticity affects the growth of microbial populations. In a previous postdoc in the Soft Condensed Matter Group at the University of Surrey I was interested in emergent behaviour arises in the statistical physics of evolution for simple models of mapping sequences to function in gene regulation. During my PhD in the Polymer and Complex Fluids Group at the University of Leeds, I developed theory to understand the conformational viscoelasticity of single biomolecules and their relation to fluctuations on an underlying energy landscape. Prior to my PhD I worked at Philips Research investigating how antenna architecture and radiowave propagation affect the information theoretic capacity of MIMO (multiple-in-multiple-out) wireless communication channels. I also have an MSc in Communication and Signal Theory and a BSc in Physics, both from Imperial College, London.

SEM-5: Force generation in the lamellipod of crawling cells

Tom Duke (University College London)

SEM-6: Physics research across the academic-industrial interface: examples from Soft Matter

Tom McLeish (Durham University)

Tom McLeish did a first degree in physics and PhD (1987) in polymer physics at the University of Cambridge. He became a lecturer in physics at the University of Sheffield, building a group working on the theory of dynamics of complex fluids. In 1993 he took the chair in polymer physics at the University of Leeds. He has since won several awards both in Europe and the USA for his work on molecular rheology of polymers, and ran a large collaborative and multidisciplinary research programme in this field from 1999-2009 co-funded between EPSRC and industry. From 2000-2005 he was a Senior Research Fellow of the EPSRC (UK), and from 2003-2009 the Director of the UK Polymer IRC, a multidisciplinary consortium of over 100 polymer scientists from university and industry. From 2004-2008 he was also Director of the White Rose Doctoral Training Centre in Biomolecules and Cells. He has consulted for a number of chemical industries. His research interests include: (i) molecular rheology of polymeric fluids); (ii) macromolecular biological physics; (iii) issues of theology, ethics and science. He has published over 150 scientific papers and reviews, and is in addition regularly involved in science-communication with the public. In 2008 he was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at Durham University.

SEM-7: Mesoscopic noise in non-equilibrium non-Fermi liquids

Sam Carr (Universität Karlsruhe)

Sam is currently a post-doc at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, having previously worked in the University of Birmingham, the International Center for Theretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, and Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state. His research focuses on strongly correlated electron systems, particularly in low-dimensions (for example, carbon nanotubes), and looking at quantum phase transitions between different ground states. He also has a strong interest in dimensional crossover phenomena, when many one-dimensional chains become weakly coupled, both in strongly anisotropic condensed matter systems, or cold atom traps.