The idea of this summer school is to create a friendly learning atmosphere, to enable open communication between students and lecturers, and create opportunities for students to make lasting contacts with peers at other universities.
Topics for 2023:
| Robijn Bruinsma, University of California Los Angeles |
Self assembly in biology. The lectures will cover the statistical mechanics of the self-assembly of lipid molecules into supra-molecular structures such as micelles, vesicles and bilayers. The schedule of the lectures is:
1) Surfactants, Langmuir Monolayers, Micelles, Bilayers and the Shulman criterium. 2) Curved bilayers, Mean and Gauss curvature, Gauss-Bonnet Theorem, and the Helfrich bending energy. 3) Pressure profile and the bending moduli. Shape phase diagram. Bilayer Difference Model. 4) Thermally fluctuating bilayers, Persistence Length, Helfrich repulsion and the Unbinding Transition. 5) Interactions between lipid bilayers, L-alpha and L3 phase. 6) Dynamics of bilayers and vesicles. |
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| Patrick Charbonneau, Duke University |
Glass physics. Recent years have seen remarkable advances in the mean-field theory of structural glasses, which is exact for infinite-dimensional, d?? systems. But do these theoretical predictions explain the behavior of real physical systems? In these lectures, I will provide an overview of glass phenomenology and discuss the mean-field theory of glasses, before exploring how numerical and theoretical tools allow to bridge between the two. This approach identifies theoretically robust features as well as glass physics that falls beyond the standard mean-field description. | |||
| Camille Duprat, LadHyX – École polytechnique | Fibers and flows. Many situations involve the interaction of fibers, or elongated filaments, and flows, from the transport of fiber suspensions to the wetting of textiles. In many cases, these high aspect ratio fibers are flexible and may deform, mostly through bending, due to the fluid forcing. These fiber-flow interactions involve an interplay of various physical mechanisms, including elasticity, capillarity, and hydrodynamics interactions, at different length and time scales. The main topics of theses lectures will be: – Fibers in viscous flows: hydrodynamics interactions, transport of fibers in microchannels, fiber suspensions and networks – Fibers and interfaces: wetting and capillarity, wicking dynamics, capillary forces and elastocapillarity – Drops on fibers in a flow: aerodynamics interactions, mist collection |
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| Jonathan Selinger, Kent State University |
Mechanics and geometry of liquid crystals. These lectures will provide an introduction to liquid crystals, from the perspective of theoretical physics. The main topics are:
1) Statistical mechanics: Spontaneous symmetry breaking leading to phases with orientational order, consequences for optics. 2) Elasticity: Free energy associated with deformations in nematic order, including a recent reformulation of the standard Oseen-Frank theory. 3) Topological defects and solitons: Classification of these structures, along with physical features such as energy, dynamics, and coupling with curvature. 4) Modulated phases: Mechanisms for director deformations, ideal structures with geometric frustration, physically achievable phases. |
Format:
For 2023, the Summer School will have a fully in-person format. The school will be a 5-day residential program running from noon on Sunday, June 11 to Thursday Evening, June 15, 2023. Four lecturers will give mini-courses composed of four 90-min lectures. The lectures will be interspersed with student presentations, and some social activities. Typically, we will have four lectures a day, leaving time for discussions scientific and otherwise. The lecturers may set assignments. More details on the courses will appear here closer to the date of the school.
Location:
UMass Amherst, the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system, is located in the scenic Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, a 2-hour drive from Boston and 3 hours from New York City. The area is home to UMass and to four other liberal arts colleges. The area has a rich cultural environment in a rural setting. There are also a number of outdoor activities to fill in your free time – hiking and biking trails criss-cross the area.
Logistics:
There will be a fee of $475 for attending the school. The fee will cover on-campus lodging at UMass, breakfast, lunch and refreshments, as well as two evening meals. On other evenings, we will leave you to explore the eateries, bars, coffee-shops of Amherst and neighboring Northampton. The town is a 15 minute walk from campus, and there is free public transportation connecting the university and the town. For local students who do not require housing, the application fee is reduced to $175. To apply to attend the summer school, fill out the application at the Apply tab above. The application deadline has been extended to Monday, April 8, 2023 on a space-available basis.
All participants in the Summer School will be required to abide by UMass coronavirus safety practices that are in effect at the time of the Summer School. Current campus safety practices may be seen here.
Posters:
All participants are encouraged to bring a poster describing the research they are involved in or going on in their research groups. These posters do not need to report new or finished research results, and can be less formal than posters you would present at a regular conference. We will have one or more poster sessions, where you can find out about what is happening at other universities.