Speaker: Max Lavrentovich, Worcester State University

Title: Strongly driven mixtures and membranes: Out of equilibrium surprises

Abstract: The more prosaic cousin of active matter, driven inactive matter, is still full of unexpected phenomena. I will discuss two projects involving two seemingly mundane systems, a phase-separating colloidal mixture and a lipid membrane, which demonstrate counterintuitive properties when driven out of equilibrium. We will see that the phase separating mixture, when driven by a uniform force, develops (in simulations) an intriguing pattern with a characteristic length scale set by the magnitude of the drive. We will look at some theoretical approaches to understanding the pattern formation and possible experimental realizations. The membrane, when driven by an oscillatory electric field, develops (in experiments) a long-lived metastable state with a decreased capacitance and increased dissipation. This state may have implications for neuronal processing and memory formation.