David Martin (University of Chicago)
Emergent phenomena in active matter and beyond
Active Matter deals with the study of microscopic agents able to exert self-propulsion forces on their medium. These microscopic agents can model various entities evolving in a large range of scales in Nature; from bacterias and flying birds to man-made self-phoretic colloids. The presence of self-propulsion drives the active agents out of equilibrium and allows for the emergence of landmark phenomena, both at the level of a single agent and at the collective level in ensembles of agents. In this presentation, I will first characterize such nonequilibrium phenomena for a single active particle. I will then move to the characterization of different collective behaviors as a function of the microscopic interactions between the active agents. In particular, I will assess how topological, repulsive and nonreciprocal interactions interplay with the emergence of collective motion.