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Prof. Schmittmann (left) explaing the TASEP model to a student. Prof. Schmittmann maintains an active research program while juggling her duties as Physics Department Chair.
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At the theoretical condensed matter physics group at Virginia Tech,
investigations of a wide range of physical, chemical, and biological systems are being carried out using both analytical and computational techniques. Our research interests range from complex systems, both near and driven far from thermal equilibrium, to nanoscience and biological physics, supporting fruitful interactions of faculty, postdoctoral associates and graduate students working in different areas of condensed matter theory.
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Broad research areas include phase transitions and critical phenomena in a variety of interacting many-body systems, population dynamics and random walk problems, driven diffusive systems, electronic, magnetic, optical and transport properties of semiconducting materials and heterostructures, molecular devices and biological systems.
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Prof. Pleimling (left) discussing a problem
with a student. Prof. Pleimling is an expert
on the theory of ageing.
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Prof. Kulkarni (right) advising a student.
Prof. Kulkarni is an expert on the applications of theoretical condensed matter physics ideas and techniques to biophysics.
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Current projects include universal properties and scaling behavior in magnetic and interacting particle systems, branching/annihilating random walks and percolation problems, reaction-diffusion systems and chemical reactions, population dynamics, fundamental properties of nonequilibrium steady states, traffic problems such as jam formation and coarsening dynamics, structural phase transitions, boson localization, vortex transport and flux pinning in superconductors, effective interactions between large (bio)molecules, spin dynamics for nanoparticles, electronic and vibrational properties of semiconducting clusters, magnetic, optical, and transport properties of magnetic molecules, related heterostructures and interfaces, regulatory networks in biological systems, and the theoretical modelling of protein production rates.
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Analytic techniques include classical Landau-Ginzburg theory as well as modern approaches such as coherent-state path-integrals and field theoretic renormalization group analysis. Computational methods include numerical solutions of Master and Langevin equations, Monte Carlo simulations of model systems, and first-principles approaches for ground state and transport problems within density functional theory.
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Prof. Park (right) working with a student.
Prof. Park in an expert on the computational studies of the properties of magnetic materials and nanostructures.
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Our students are provided with access to a
variety of excellent computing resources to
aid them in their research.
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We have access to excellent computing facilities, such as the Physics Department's 134 node 832 core Thunderbird cluster, 29 node 116 core Tempest cluster, 105 node 238 core Cluster-at-nite, and Virginia Tech's terascale supercomputer, System X.
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Our work is naturally suited for interdisciplinary research. As a result, we have numerous collaborators, both in other departments at Virginia Tech and in research institutions - such as universities, industrial and government laboratories - around the world. The group runs an active seminar series which attracts high profile visitors from a variety of disciplines.
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Profs. Park (left) and Scarola (right) working together on a problem with Prof. Minic (center) who is a string theorist. We are engaged in many interdisciplinary collaborations such as this with researchers around the world.
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Many of our Ph.D. students have built successful academic careers after graduation such as Dr. Zoltan Toroczkai (center, Ph.D. 1997), who is now a faculty member at the University of Notre Dame, pictured here with Profs. Zia (left) and Schmittmann (right).
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We are members of the following on-campus centers:
Research is supported by the National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research, DMR-9419393, DMR-0075725, DMR-0088451, DMR-0308548, DMR-0405057, DMR-0414122.
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