Skip to main content
European Commission logo print header

Bridging Non-Equilibrium Problems: From the Fourier Law to Gene Expression

Objectif

My goal is to study several important open mathematical problems in non-equilibrium (NEQ) systems and to build a bridge between these problems and NEQ aspects of soft sciences, in particular biological questions. Traffic on this bridge is going to be two-way, the mathematics carrying a long history as a language of science towards the soft sciences, and the soft sciences fruitfully asking new questions and building new paradigms for mathematical research.
Out-of-equilibrium systems pose several fascinating problems: The Fourier law which says that resistance of a wire is proportional to its length is still presenting hard problems for research, and even the existence and the convergence to a NEQ steady state are continuously posing new puzzles, as do questions of smoothness and correlations of such states. These will be addressed with stochastic differential equations, and with particlescatterer systems, both canonical and grand-canonical. The latter are extensions of the well-known Lorentz gas and the study of hyperbolic billiards.
Another field where NEQ plays an important role is the study of glassy systems. They were studied with molecular dynamics (MD) but I have used a topological variant, which mimics astonishingly well what happens in MD simulations. The aim is to extend this to 3 dimensions, where new problems appear.
Finally, I will apply the NEQ studies to biological systems: How a system copes with the varying environment,adapting in this way to a novel type of NEQ. I will study networks of communication among neurons,which are like random graphs with the additional property of being embedded, and the arrangement of genes on chromosomes in such a way as to optimize the adaptation to the different cell types which must be produced using the same genetic information.
I will answer such questions with students and collaborators, who will specialize in the subprojects but will interact with my help across the common bridge.

Appel à propositions

ERC-2011-ADG_20110209
Voir d’autres projets de cet appel

Régime de financement

ERC-AG - ERC Advanced Grant

Institution d’accueil

UNIVERSITE DE GENEVE
Contribution de l’UE
€ 2 135 385,00
Adresse
RUE DU GENERAL DUFOUR 24
1211 Geneve
Suisse

Voir sur la carte

Région
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Région lémanique Genève
Type d’activité
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Chercheur principal
Jean-Pierre Eckmann (Prof.)
Contact administratif
Alex Waehry (Dr.)
Liens
Coût total
Aucune donnée

Bénéficiaires (1)