Active matter and collective behaviour

The lectures offer a statistical-physics perspective on active matter, which encompasses systems whose fundamental constituents dissipate energy to exert forces on the environment. This out-of-equilibrium microscopic drive endows active systems with properties unmatched in passive ones. From molecular motors to bacteria and animals, active agents are found at all scales in nature. Over the past twenty years, physicists and chemists have also engineered synthetic active systems in the lab, by motorizing particles whose sizes range from nanometers to centimeters, hence paving the way towards the engineering of active materials.

The lectures will rely on the modern tools of statistical mechanics, from stochastic calculus to field theoretical methods, using both theoretical models and experimental systems to illustrate the rich physics of active matter.