Soft Matter Theory and Simulation

The central approach permeating our research philosophy is to perform accurate coarse-graining processes on the complex, multicomponent systems encountered in soft and biological matter, so as to drastically reduce the inherent complexity and bridge the scales from a (highly complex) microscopic one to a more manageable mesoscopic. Afterwards, the subsequent bridging from the mesoscopic to the macroscopic scale follows through rules, techniques and procedures known from the theory of simple fluids and crystals. This approach has proven extremely fruitful, e.g., in the domain of materials science and engineering, since it allows for the prediction of the forms of self-organization of matter, starting from the basis of the properties and architecture of the constituent macromolecules at the microscopic scale. What is even more important, the technique allows the study of not only equilibrium properties (fluid structure, crystallization) but also of dynamical ones (glass formation and rheology). The typical techniques that we apply along these lines draw from a diverse and mutually complementary pool of approaches, some of which have been co-developed and refined in the group: scaling theory of polymers, density functional theory (static and dynamical), integral equation theories, renormalization-group methods, phonon theories, genetic algorithms, as well as mode coupling theory of glass formation.