Welcome to the pages of the working group Wittkowski

This working group moves to RWTH Aachen University. Its new website can be found at the following URL:https://www.dwi.rwth-aachen.de/en/arbeitsgruppe/rg-wittkowski

Overview

The group “Theory of active soft matter” is a working group at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the University of Münster and supported through the Emmy Noether Programme of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). Our research mainly belongs to the field of soft condensed matter physics and has a focus on “active soft matter”. In particular, we investigate suspensions of passive and active colloidal particles. While ordinary passive colloidal particles are already widespread in everyday life and of great relevance, e. g., for chemical industry, active colloidal particles constitute a relatively new field of research, where the foundations for novel applications are currently being laid. Furthermore, we study a wide range of topics from various fields based on the methods of statistical physics. (Details)

News

Youtube channel:
A Youtube channel of the working group is currently under construction (Link to YouTube).
It will publish short tutorial videos that include especially topics from theoretical physics, which are important but insufficiently covered by textbooks.

 

Recent press reports:

• Publication on the propulsion of freely orientable nanoparticles by travelling ultrasound waves in ACS Nano (Link to press release)

• Publication on the application of the Mori-Zwanzig formalism on general relativity in Physical Review Letters (Link to press release)
• Review article on classical dynamical density functional theory in Advances in Physics (Link to press release)
• Our working group participates in the new CRC 1459 (Link to press release)
• Publication on the spreading of the coronavirus epidemic in Nature Communications (Link to press release)
• Group member wins the Infineon Master Award (Link to press release)

Working in our group

If you are interested in writing your thesis in our group, please contact us.

Five recent events with talks of the working group (see links for videos) (more)

Please see our list of talks for a complete listing of talks held by members of the working group.

 

The Fourth International Conference of the German Society for Philosophy of Science (Technische Universität Berlin, August 2022)

1. Talk, "Irreversibility in statistical mechanics: from quantum mechanics to soft matter theory", Michael te Vrugt, Gyula Tóth, Raphael Wittkowski (Link to recording)

 

Workshop "New directions in classical density functional theory" (University of Edinburgh, May 2021)

1. Talk, "Effects of social distancing and isolation on epidemic spreading modeled via dynamical density functional theory", Michael te Vrugt*, Raphael Wittkowski (Link to recording (University of Edinburgh))

 

DPG Spring Meeting 2021

 

1. Talk, "The Five Problems of Irreversibility", Michael te Vrugt*
2. Talk, "The dynamics of burst-like collective migration in 3D cancer spheroids", Swetha Raghuraman*, Raphael Wittkowski, Timo Betz
3. Talk, "Predictive local field theories for interacting active Brownian spheres", Jens Bickmann, Raphael Wittkowski*
4. Talk, "Effects of social distancing and isolation modeled via dynamical density functional theory", Michael te Vrugt*, Jens Bickmann, Raphael Wittkowski
5. Talk, "Orientational order parameters for arbitrary classical and quantum liquid crystals", Michael te Vrugt*, Raphael Wittkowski
6. Poster, "Jerky active matter: a phase field crystal model with translational and orientational memory", Michael te Vrugt*, Julian Jeggle, Raphael Wittkowski

 

APS March Meeting 2021

1. Talk, "Effects of social distancing and isolation modeled via dynamical density functional theory", Michael te Vrugt*, Jens Bickmann, Raphael Wittkowski (Link to recording)
2. Talk, "Jerky active matter", Michael te Vrugt, Julian Jeggle*, Raphael Wittkowski (Link to recording)
3. Talk, "Predictive field-theoretical modeling of interacting active Brownian particles", Jens Bickmann, Raphael Wittkowski* (Link to recording)
4. Poster, "Orientational order parameters for arbitrary quantum systems", Michael te Vrugt*, Raphael Wittkowski (Link to recording)

 

SPIE OPTO 2021

1. Talk, "Light-driven microrobots: light fuels motion", Cornelia Denz*, Alejandro Jurado, Matthias Rüschenbaum, Jonas Hallekamp, Julian Jeggle, Raphael Wittkowski (Link to recording (SPIE Digital Library))

Five selected publications (more)

1. M. te Vrugt, J. Bickmann and R. Wittkowski,
   Effects of social distancing and isolation on epidemic spreading modeled via dynamical density functional theory,
   Nature Communications 11, 5576 (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19024-0 (link to the article)
2. R. Wittkowski, A. Tiribocchi, J. Stenhammar, R. J. Allen, D. Marenduzzo and M. E. Cates,
   Scalar ϕ⁴ field theory for active-particle phase separation,
   Nature Communications 5, 4351 (2014). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5351 (link to the article)
3. M. te Vrugt, T. Frohoff-Hülsmann, E. Heifetz, U. Thiele and R. Wittkowski,
   From a microscopic inertial active matter model to the Schrödinger equation,
   Nature Communications 14, 1302 (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35635-1 (link to the article)
4. J. Stenhammar, R. Wittkowski, D. Marenduzzo and M. E. Cates,
   Light-induced self-assembly of active rectification devices,
   Science Advances 2, e1501850 (2016). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501850 (link to the article)
5. M. te Vrugt, H. Löwen and R. Wittkowski,
   Classical dynamical density functional theory: from fundamentals to applications,
   Advances in Physics 69, 121-247 (2020). DOI: 10.1080/00018732.2020.1854965 (link to the article)