Collective behavior as a research area investigates how large ensembles of interacting agents—such as cells, animals, humans, or artificial units—generate emergent spatiotemporal patterns and coordinated dynamics that cannot be trivially inferred from individual-level rules. It integrates concepts and methods from statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, complex systems theory, network science, and computational modeling to characterize phenomena such as synchronization, swarming, flocking, consensus formation, and phase transitions in social or biological systems. Research focuses on identifying local interaction rules, quantifying macroscopic order parameters, understanding robustness and criticality, and developing predictive, often multi-scale, models of group-level organization and decision-making.
In the search for more efficient and sustainable energy generation methods, a class of materials called metal halide perovskites have shown great promise. In the few years since their discovery, novel solar cells based on ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 17, 2024
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Active systems display a wide range of complex and fascinating behaviors, many of which are not yet fully understood. Found on scales ranging from microbes and self-propelling particles to large groups of fish, birds, and ...
General Physics
Jun 11, 2024
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Physicists are also interested in fish—above all when they are researching the formation of structures. A research team from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the University of Bristol (United Kingdom) has ...
General Physics
Mar 25, 2024
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75
In 1960, Lewis Fry Richardson famously observed that the severity of a wartime event is described by a simple power law distribution that scales according to the size of the conflict. Statisticians have since proposed various ...
General Physics
Mar 21, 2024
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In nature, the collective motion of some birds and fish, such as flocks of starlings and shoals of sardines, respectively, can generate impressive dynamic phenomena. Their study constitutes active matter science, which has ...
Nanophysics
Feb 13, 2024
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31
Introducing light conversion materials into silicon-based photovoltaic devices is an effective way to improve their photoelectric conversion efficiency. Light conversion materials include quantum cutting materials and upconversion ...
Condensed Matter
Feb 5, 2024
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12
Fusion energy is being developed as a solution to global energy problems. In particular, the magnetic confinement method, in which ultra-high temperature plasma is confined by a magnetic field, is the most advanced and is ...
Plasma Physics
Jan 26, 2024
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73
Human behavior is an enigma that fascinates many scientists. And there has been much discussion over the role of probability in explaining how our minds work.
Quantum Physics
Jan 19, 2024
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Active matter systems feature unique behaviors that include collective self-assembly structures and collective migration. However, the efforts to realize collective entities in spaces without wall-adhered support, in order ...
Remote epitaxy has been gaining attention in the field of semiconductor manufacturing for growing thin films that copy the crystal structure of the template, which can later be exfoliated to form freestanding membranes. However, ...
Nanomaterials
Sep 12, 2023
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