Funding period: 2021 – 2024 

Project leader: Matthias Fuchs

Scientific staff: Nikolas Ditz, Saswati Ganguly, Stefan Gerlach

The activated crossing of an energy barrier is a ubiquitous dynamical process in materials, yet activation far from thermal equilibrium and in high dimensional energy landscapes remains poorly understood. The project will develop a theoretical framework for studying the spectroscopy of intramolecular fluctuations of a bistable probe particle in a flowing fluid or deforming amorphous solid. The conditions for observing activated dynamics in the nonlinear (double-well) potential coupled to the driven particulate bath will be investigated from first principles and the concepts of mechanical noise and effective temperature scrutinized.

List of publications

Current preprints

• A self-consistent current response theory of jamming and vibrational modes in low-temperature amorphous solids
  F. Vogel, P. Baumgärtel, M. Fuchs
  arXiv2405.06537 - published 6 May 2024
   

2024

• Properties of stable ensembles of Euclidean random matrices
  P. Baumgärtel, F. Vogel, and M. Fuchs
  Phys. Rev. E 109, 014120 – published 17 January 2024

2023

• Crystal to crystal transformation in soft ionic microgels: Kinetics and the role of local mechanical susceptibilities
  S. Ganguly, S. Nöjd, A. Yethiraj, P. Schurtenberger, and P. S. Mohanty
  Phys. Rev. Materials 7, L080401 – published 28 August 2023
   
• Vibrational Phenomena in Glasses at Low Temperatures Captured by Field Theory of Disordered Harmonic Oscillators
  Florian Vogel and Matthias Fuchs 
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 236101 - published 07 June 2023
  news release at UniKN
   
• How are mobility and friction related in viscoelastic fluids?
  J. Caspers, N. Ditz, K. K. Kumar, F. Ginot, C. Bechinger, M. Fuchs, and M. Krüger
  J. Chem. Phys. 158, 024901 (2023) - published 9 January 2023
  related also to project C05

• From viscous fluids to elastic solids: A perspective on the glass transition
  A. Zippelius, and M. Fuchs
  “Spin Glass Theory & Far Beyond - Replica Symmetry Breaking after 40 Years”, World Scientific (2023)

2021

• Brownian systems perturbed by mild shear: Comparing response relations
  K. Asheichyk, M. Fuchs, and M. Krüger
  J. Phys. Condens. Matter 33, 405101 (2021) - published  30 July 2021
  related also to project C05

Further Publications

• Observation of Strongly Heterogeneous Dynamics at the Depinning Transition in a Colloidal Glass
  N. Şenbil, M. Gruber, C. Zhang, ‚M. Fuchs, and F. Scheffold
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 108002 – published 13 March 2019
   
• Dynamics of a noninteracting colloidal fluid in a quenched Gaussian random potential: a time-reversal-symmetry-preserving field-theoretic approach
  B. Kim, M. Fuchs, and V. Krakoviac
  J. Stat. Mech. 023301 - published 12 February 2020
   
• Shear-induced breaking of cages in colloidal glasses: Scattering experiments and mode coupling theory 
  C. P. Amann,  D. Denisov,  M. T. Dang,  B. Struth,  P. Schall, M. Fuchs
  J. Chem. Phys. 143, 034505 - published 21 July 2015
   
• Fluctuation Dissipation Relations in Stationary States of Interacting Brownian Particles under Shear
  M. Krüger, and M. Fuchs
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 135701 – published 31 March 2009
   
• Rheology of Inelastic Hard Spheres at Finite Density and Shear Rate
  W. Till Kranz, Fabian Frahsa, Annette Zippelius, Matthias Fuchs, and Matthias Sperl
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 148002 – published 2 October 2018
   
• Integration through transients for inelastic hard sphere fluids
  W. Till Kranz, Fabian Frahsa, Annette Zippelius, Matthias Fuchs, and Matthias Sperl
  Phys. Rev. Fluids 5, 024305 – published 28 February 2020