Colloquium: April 16, 2014

Gunter Schütz*

Surprising Physics in One Dimension
From Molecular Motors to Anomalous Diffusion

Host: Balazs Hetényi

ABSTRACT —  In recent years, more and more one-dimensional many-body systems have become experimentally accessible with increasingly sophisticated techniques. Such systems, when kept far from equilibrium, exhibit surprising phenomena that have no counterpart in thermal equilibrium. Examples include bulk phase transitions induced by a change just in boundary parameters (e.g. “traffic jams” of biological molecular motors), super diffusive spreading of fluctuations (e.g. in interfaces in thin films), or subdiffusive transport, e.g of guest molecules in zeolites. The theoretical understanding of these phenomena is challenging since there is no general theory of non-equilibrium stationary states, nor can one apply standard methods such as linear response theory or mean field theory. However, in one space dimension some paradigmatic lattice gas models for stochastic non-equilibrium dynamics are exactly solvable and thus shed light into the fascinating world of low-dimensional non-equilibrium physics.

*Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany

The Physics Colloquia are designed to address a non-specialist, broad audience and introduce topics of contemporary research through lectures by leading experts. We warmly invite all members of the student body, including undergraduates enrolled in any programme.

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