Every semester the Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics invites a distinguished theoretical physicist in order to present a short series of lectures with increasing level of specialization. Usually it includes a public talk for a general audience, a theory colloquium and a specialized seminar.
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The Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics (ASC)
Life on a Noisy Seascape: Extinction, Growth, and Diversity
Populations and communities rarely evolve in static environments; their fitness landscapes fluctuate across space and time, forming what may be called a noisy seascape. This talk examines how such variability modifies classical models of population dynamics and community stability. Beginning from the logistic equation, I will show how spatiotemporal fluctuations in fitness lead naturally to power-law population statistics and, under certain conditions, to the empirical (fractional) Richards growth law. Extending these ideas to interacting species reveals that the combined effects of dispersal and environmental noise can stabilize large, diverse communities despite strong competitive interactions. The resulting framework connects extinction, growth, and coexistence within a unified view of life on a noisy seascape.
23 Jan 2026
Boundaries, inclusions and disorder in active matter
Active systems are driven out of equilibrium by exchanging energy and momentum with their environment. This endows them with anomalous mechanical properties which leads to rich phenomena when active fluids are in contact with boundaries, inclusions, or disordered potentials. Indeed, studies of the mechanical pressure of active fluids and of the dynamics of passive tracers have shown that active systems impact their environment in non-trivial ways, for example, by propelling and rotating anisotropic inclusions. Conversely, the long-ranged density and current modulations induced by localized obstacles show how the environment can have a far-reaching impact on active fluids. This is best exemplified by the propensity of bulk and boundary disorder to destroy bulk phase separation in active matter, showing active systems to be much more sensitive to their surroundings than passive ones.
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