Mehran Kardar


Research

Brief summary: I am a theoretical physicist, specializing in Statistical Mechanics. My research has spanned a variety of topics, and the best indication of my current interests can be gleaned from recent publications posted on the archives. General areas of interest include:

  1. Non-equilibrium collective behavior (as in active matter, aggregation and deposition in growth, transport with random inputs and outputs., etc.) is best described starting from phenomenological equations constructed on the basis of symmetries and conservation laws. We have successfully applied this methodology to several problems involving polymers, flux lines, and growing surfaces and bacterial range expansions.
  2. Disordered systems such as spin- and flux-glasses, are characterized by a complex (free) energy landscape and slow dynamics. Using analytical solutions, or clever numerical algorithms, we have found exact results, or bounds, for a number of simple glassy systems motivated by flux lines in superconductors. Even these simple models are of great value, indicating interesting connections to diverse problems in optimization, neural networks, and evolution.
  3. Soft Matter: Polymers, membranes, and gels; anomalous transport and relaxation.
  4. Fluctuation-Induced Phenomena: Casimir forces, electromagnetic fluctuations in and out of equilibrium.
  5. Biologically Physics: Cortical patterns, knots in proteins, immune response.

    

(Supported by the US, National Science Foundation)


Supporting Material


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