Modelling the dynamics of active matter

活性物质是一个术语，用来描述由大量自行推进的活性“粒子”组成的物质，这些粒子将储存的能量或环境能量单独转化为系统运动。许多这些单独的活性粒子彼此之间或与其环境的相互作用可能导致复杂的集体动力学。生物学上的例子包括一群鸟、一群鱼，或者更小规模的细菌悬浮液，甚至是人类细胞内的集体运动。这种活性物质的研究在许多生物相关的应用中是重要的，包括：合成材料的设计（生物工程），种群动力学模型（生物修复），生物膜形成的控制（生物医学）和替代能源生产（生物燃料）。了解活性物质系统的动力学最终可以导致合成活性物质的精心设计和控制，从而实现自主化学传感或合成自主活性粒子有针对性地输送有效载荷等应用。该计划的目标是开发一个数学建模和计算框架，使用快速数值方法和机器学习来描述，然后设计密集的活性物质系统，用于从健康到能源的应用。这包括在可能包含复杂异质微结构的流体环境中存在许多相互作用的自主活性颗粒表现出集体动力学的场景。

Active matter is a term used to describe matter that is composed of a large number of self-propelled active `particles' that individually convert stored or ambient energy into systematic motion. The interaction of many of these individual active particles with each other or their environment can lead to complex collective dynamics. Biological examples include a flock of birds, a school of fish, or at smaller scales a suspension of bacteria or even the collective motion within a human cell. The study of such active matter is important in many bio-related applications including: the design of synthetic materials (bioengineering), models of population dynamics (bioremediation), the control of biofilm formation (biomedical), and alternative energy production (biofuels). Understanding the dynamics of active matter systems can ultimately lead to the careful design and control of synthetic active matter allowing for applications such as autonomous chemical sensing or the targeted delivery of payloads by synthetic autonomous active particles. The objective of this program is to develop a mathematical modelling and computational framework using fast numerical methods and machine learning to describe, and then design, dense active matter systems for applications ranging from health to energy. This includes scenarios where there are many interacting autonomous active particles exhibiting collective dynamics in fluid environments that may contain complex heterogeneous microstructure.