Office Location: 285 Physics
Office Phone: +1 919 660 2546
Email Address: alin@phy.duke.edu
Web Page: http://phy.duke.edu/research/chempatt/
Research Categories: Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, Nonlinear dynamics, biological physics
Research Description: Our research focuses on discovering and understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics of biological and chemical systems driven far from their thermodynamic equilibrium, the physical condition necessary for life to occur. Our research is highly interdisciplinary, applying the perspective and understanding of physics to the study of chemical and biological systems such as the brain or a collection of cancerous cells. We develop quantitative descriptions of pattern formation and non-equilibrium transition phenomena with the aim of contributing to a fundamental understanding of the collective, self-organizing mechanisms at work in complex systems. Current research topics include synchronization studies of externally-forced, spatially-extended chemical oscillators which model the dynamics of excitable tissue such as the heart and brain, and investigations of the collective response of a population of individuals ({\E. coli} to external conditions that vary in space and time, as is often the case in nature. The experiments described above are modeled using nonlinear reaction-diffusion equations. We use the numerical simulations to provide new insight on observed experimental phenomenon and to help guide our experiments. In the future we will apply the analysis tools developed in our current research to study real neural network signaling patterns, intercellular spatio-temporal communication mechanisms, and the dynamics of combustion.
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