LORENTZ CENTER WORKSHOP

COLLECTIVE ASPECTS OF STOCHASTIC
NON-EQUILIBRIUM PHENOMENA
AT SURFACES AND INTERFACES

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Lorentz Center, Leiden University, 14-25 June 2004

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Motivation and Scope

The purpose of the meeting is to bring together experts in experiment, theory, and computer simulation, working on collective stochastic phenomena in condensed matter physics, in particular in surface and interface physics, to intensify interactions between these communities and facilitate new joint projects.

Stochastic, non-equilibrium processes form a popular theme in modern research in condensed matter and statistical physics. The two-dimensional playground constituted by the surfaces and interfaces of condensed matter systems provides a multitude of exciting and highly relevant experimental and practical realizations of a variety of models considered in analytical theory and computer simulations. Typical examples of the processes of interest for the proposed workshop are surface diffusion, crystal growth or erosion, surface phase transitions, chemical reaction front dynamics, contact dynamics and friction.

Where the experimental focus in this area has long been on the atomic-scale detail of these processes, the more sophisticated experimental tools and improved analysis techniques available today are enabling new types of investigations, covering the full hierarchy of length scales from that of a single atom to that of the resulting collective response of the two-dimensional system. A similar development can be observed in ab initio theory (e.g. DFT) and computer simulations, which nowadays can handle sufficiently large systems over sufficiently long time scales, by virtue of the available computer power and of newly developed, smart computational strategies, that they both incorporate the essential microscopic aspects and capture the emerging collective behavior on larger length and time scales. At the statistical mechanics side, progress in the fundamental understanding of collective phenomena in non-equilibrium statistical processes has been rapid, due to the application of scaling theory, generalized from its roots in equilibrium phase transitions during the last quarter of the 20th century, numerical simulations, and exact solutions (e.g., the Bethe Ansatz method in specific one-plus-one dimensional processes, like KPZ growth and asymmetric exclusion transport processes).

In addition to being scientifically highly challenging, the new approaches in experiment, theory, and computer simulations embody the essential ingredients of the translation of basic, atomic- and molecular-scale phenomena to the mesoscopic and macroscopic regime of the response of a complete system to non-equilibrium conditions, which will become important for a wide variety of smart, future technologies.

Specific examples of links that will be explored are:

Experiments on friction and models of driven diffusive flow.

Experiments on catalytic surface reactions and models of absorbing state dynamic phase transitions.

Crystal growth in the presence of additional degrees of freedom, such as surface reconstruction and random impurities.

This is an open workshop, limited only by the capacity of the facilities, a maximum of 60 particiapants.

The number of invited participants, of the order of 21-24, will be chosen equally between experimentalists, theorists, and computer simulation experts. Each invitee will present an overview-type talk about their specialty.

We invite all our coleagues, in particular those in the Netherlands, to attend our workshop. We specifically encourage junior scientists (graduate students and postdocs) to attend.