NBIA Workshop: A Copenhagen afternoon on geometry and topology in soft materials

Contribution List

7. Martin Cramer Pedersen (University of Copenhagen): Welcome

19/02/2024, 12:50

1. Gerd Schröder-Türk (Murdoch University): The Gyroid - Nature's best attempt at embedding the Hyperbolic Plane in Euclidean space

19/02/2024, 13:00

By Hilbert's famous theorem, all infinite symmetric saddle surface with zero mean curvature (ie minimal surfaces) must have variations of the Gauss curvature. For bicontinuous minimal surfaces which divide space into two domains and define network-like domains, the Euler-Poincare number and hence the average Gauss curvature is negative. However, these surfaces also always have flat points with...

2. Amin Doostmohammadi (University of Copenhagen): Topological defects in biological matter

19/02/2024, 13:30

I will discuss various examples of how the emergence of orientational order and its breakdown are generic themes in fundamental processes in cell biology and how they provide a universal mechanism for choreographing the directional passage of mechanical and biochemical information in time and across different scales.

4. Myfanwy Evans (University of Potsdam): Geometry-based simulation of self assembly

19/02/2024, 14:30

The morphometric approach to solvation free energy is a geometry-based theory that incorporates a weighted combination of geometric measures over the solvent accessible surface for solute configurations in a solvent. In this talk, I will demonstrate that employing this geometric technique in simulating the self assembly of sphere clusters and small loops results in an assortment of interesting...

6. Jacob Kirkensgaard (University of Copenhagen): Exploring pattern formation on negatively curved surfaces via the hyperbolic plane

19/02/2024, 15:00

We investigate the self-assembly behaviour of block copolymers constrained to thin hyperbolic films. Specifically, we study the pattern formation on the three-periodic cubic minimal surfaces P, D and G found ubiquitously in soft matter material science. We use a new method for visualisation and analysis of the patterns by mapping to two-dimensional hyperbolic space analogous to stereographic...

3. Adil Mughal (Aberystwyth University): Peierls-Nabarro potential for a confined chain of hard spheres under compression

19/02/2024, 16:00

Examples of bifurcation diagrams are presented for a chain of hard spheres under compression, which are confined by a transverse potential. The diagrams are modified in the presence of an axial force and show interesting topological rearrangements due to the reconnection of loci of different equilibrium solutions. The corresponding Peierls-Nabarro potential is defined and calculated for...

5. Matthias Himmelmann (University of Potsdam): An Empirical Treatment of Disordered Minimal Surfaces

19/02/2024, 16:30

Triply periodic minimal surfaces -- especially the Primitive, Diamond and Gyroid -- appear throughout nature. While traditionally, the focus has been on highly symmetric phases, recently attention has shifted towards disordered structures. For example, these surfaces manifest as intermediate phases, sponge phases, and materials such as amorphous silicon. In this work, we employ two distinct...

8. Martin Cramer Pedersen (University of Copenhagen): TBA