Non-equilibrium statistical physics
(Prof. Dr. Peter Sollich)

News

Nov 2024: Poster with a graphical overview of project areas for ideas for Bachelor and Master projects is available online - see also this list for specific new projects
Nov 2024: New paper in Physical Review Letters on bringing together two paradigms of non-equilibrium systems: driving and aging
Jun 2024: Bibhut Sahoo awarded University Fellowship of International Max Planck Research School for Physics of Biological and Complex Systems - congratulations!
Aug 2023: New publication in Physical Review Letters on analytical theory for amplification of composition imbalances in complex mixtures
Jun 2023: Peter Sollich awarded "Robert-Wichard-Pohl-Medaille" for teaching excellence
Dec 2022: Jack Parley awarded "Dr. Berliner und Dr. Ungewitter" PhD Dissertation Prize 2022, see here

Research focus

The focus of our research group is on the statistical physics of systems that are out of equilibrium. This is an area where there are many fundamental question, in particular around energy transformations and dissipation, and in the group we develop theoretical tools to tackle these (e.g. trajectory thermodynamics, approximation techniques for path integrals).
We also work on a number of application areas including (see also this poster)

Aging and mechanical response in amorphous systems, including applications to biophysics
Phase separation in complex mixtures
Active systems, driven by e.g. self-propulsion or non-Gaussian noise
Subnetworks and coarse-graining, e.g. in protein interaction and gene regulation networks
Dynamics on networks and applications to glassy physics
Statistical physics tools for inference and machine learning

Publications

You can find an overview of the group's publications on

Open positions and Bachelor / Master theses

We welcome new members with an interest in the fascinating world of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. For possible topics of Bachelor, Master or PhD theses please contact the group leader, Prof. Peter Sollich
See also this poster for a graphical overview of topics and project ideas

Older news

July 2022: Fully funded PhD position in Mesoscopic modelling of cytoskeletal rheology available, apply by 2 August 2022
June 2022: Postdoc position in Non-equilibrium statistical physics available, apply by 17 July 2022 if possible
May 2022: New paper out in Physical Review Letters on analytical theory for yielding of amorphous materials under oscillatory shear
May 2022: Jack Parley successfully defends his PhD thesis with top grade - congratulations!
Apr 2022: New publication from the group on localisation in network models of glassy dynamics
Feb 2022: Registration is open for our Higgs Centre workshop with colleagues from Edinburgh on Statistical mechanical theories of emergence in biological systems
Dec 2021: New article now out in Physical Review Research on memory in disordered athermal solids
Apr 2021: New article on highly persistent active matter published in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter
Jan 2021: Paper on Active mixtures in narrow channels published in Soft Matter
Dec 2020: New paper on Aging in elastoplastic models out in Physics of Fluids
Nov 2020: Prasenjit Das joins group as postdoc from Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
Nov 2020: New paper on Aging in active glasses out in Physical Review Letters
Nov 2020: New articles published including Tractable nonlinear memory functions, Aging in mean-field elastoplastic models and a Europhysics News feature contribution on The nonlinearity of life
Sept 2020: Paper on Crossover in glassy dynamics between entropic and energetic barriers by Diego Tapias published in JSTAT
Sept 2020: Filipe Thewes joins group from Brazil as new PhD student
July 2020: New article on Dynamics of extrinsic noise in biochemical subnetworks out in Journal of Chemical Physics
May 2020: Paper on Extreme active matter at high densities by Rituparno Mandal and collaborators published in Nature Communications
Mar 2020: Now recruiting for two-year postdoc position in non-equilibrium statistical physics, with flexible starting date from summer 2020
Feb 2020: Rituparno Mandal awarded Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship for work on "Rheology and Mechanics of Active Glasses''
Jan 2020: New paper in Physical Review Letters on a nucleation theory for yielding of almost defect-free crystals
Jan 2020: Now recruiting for DFG-funded joint project with Prof. Matthias Krüger on "Dynamics of dense mixtures: Kinetic and thermodynamic effects in non-equilibrium fluctuations, phase separation and structure formation''
Jan 2020: Moshir Harsh joins group as PhD student
Sept 2019: Paper in Physical Review Letters on athermal aging published as Editor's Choice
Sept 2019: Paper on non-affine displacement fluctuations and crystal defects published in Physical Review E
May 2019: Six contributions from the group accepted at StatPhys27
Oct 2018: Coordinating three-week programme on Stochastic Dynamics on Networks at MPI Dresden with Manfred Opper and Guido Sanguinetti