Boundary-induced phase transitions in systems of self-driven particles

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Schadschneider
• Subject Area: Statistical Physics, Nonlinear Dynamics, Complex Systems, Soft and Fluid Matter, Biological Physics
• Term: from 2012 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 227555662

Many complex systems can be interpreted as a collection of interacting self-driven particles.Important examples are highway and other traffic systems or biological motion on various scales, ranging from intracellular transport by molecular motors to the formation of flocksor herds. These systems often exhibit highly non-trivial and interesting collective propertieslike structure formation, phase transitions etc. To understand the physics behind thesenon-equilibrium phenomena simple models which capture the essential aspects are needed.Generically such systems are “open” in the sense that particles can enter and leave the system, usually at its boundaries. In quasi one-dimensional transport this is described by the paradigmatic asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP). The phase structure and dynamics of this process are fairly well understood. However, the ASEP contains only one species of particles without internal degrees of freedom. This is unrealistic for most applications. Therefore a generalization of these results to multicomponent, multiparticle systems where different particle species with internal degrees of freedom interact is necessary. Another important generalization concerns the boundary rates which are usually assumed to be time-independent. In most applications this is not the case, e.g. the traffic volume varies considerably during the day. By studying these problems we achieve a deeper understanding of the nonequilibrium behaviour of open systems with many interacting self-driven particles whose dynamics are essentially noisy and non-Newtonian.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Gunter Markus Schütz