Soft Matter Journal Club (SMJC)
UMass Amherst

A weekly meeting to discuss a publication in the area of soft-condensed-matter physics. Examples of soft matter include colloids, emulsions, polymers, gels, glass, granular media, membranes and other squishy materials. We encourage students to attend and participate in these informal discussions with colleagues and faculty. Attending is a great way to stay current with developments.

Please consider volunteering to lead a discussion. The key step is simply to choose an article; it is not necessary to be an expert in the field or to defend the conclusions of the article.

Time
Mondays at 12:15 for about 1 hour.
Place
Hasbrouck 409
Organizers
James Hanna and Robert Schroll
Email List
We use an email list to announce journal club meetings. Members can adjust their settings and view the archives here. Join the list by entering your email address:
Fall 2011
Date Discussion Leader Article
Sept. 19 Peter Buchak Single-drop fragmentation determines size distribution of raindrops, Emmanuel Villermaux and Benjamin Bossa, Nat. Phys. 5, 697 (2009).
Sept. 26 Lori Goldner Phase Separation Behavior in Aqueous Suspensions of Bacterial Cellulose Nanocrystals Prepared by Sulfuric Acid Treatment, Asako Hirai, Osamu Inui, Fumitaka Horii, and Masaki Tsuji, Langmuir 2009, 25, 497–502.
Oct. 3 Hunter King On the Thermodynamics of Particle-Stabilized Emulsions: Curvature Effects and Catastrophic Phase Inversion, P. A. Kralchevsky, I. B. Ivanov, K. P. Ananthapadmanabha and A. Lips, Langmuir 2005, 21, 50–63.
Oct. 10 Columbus Day No Journal Club
Oct. 17 Robert Schroll Compression Induced Folding of a Sheet: An Integrable System, Haim Diamant and Thomas A. Witten, PRL 107, 164302 (2011).
Oct. 24 Benny Davidovitch TBA
Oct. 31 James Hanna TBA
Nov. 7    
Nov. 14 Dominique Cambou TBA
Nov. 21 Jiansheng Feng TBA
Nov. 28 Selcuk Yasar TBA
Dec. 5 Tony Dinsmore TBA
Dec. 12    
Summer 2011
Date Discussion Leader Article
June 6 Ben Gamari Self-Assembly-Induced Protein Crystallization, Hongjun Liu, Sanat K. Kumar, and Jack F. Douglas, PRL 103, 018101 (2009). (Note: at 12:30)
June 13 Jiansheng Feng Restoring Superhydrophobicity of Lotus Leaves with Vibration-Induced Dewetting, Jonathan B. Boreyko and Chuan-Hua Chen, PRL 103, 174502 (2009).
June 20 Dominique Cambou Deformation of an Elastic Substrate by a Three-Phase Contact Line, Elizabeth R. Jerison, Ye Xu, Larry A. Wilen, and Eric R. Dufresne, PRL 106, 186103 (2011).
June 27 Lee Walsh Kinetics of ring formation, E. Ben-Naim and P. L. Krapivsky, PRE 83, 061102 (2011).
July 4 Independence Day No Journal Club
July 11 Selcuk Yasar Composite polarizability and the construction of an invariant function of refraction and mass density for solutions, Krzysztof Szymański and Horia I. Petrache, J. Chem. Phys. 134, 144701 (2011).
July 18 Peter Morgan Effective potentials between nanoparticles in suspension, Gary S. Grest, Qifei Wang, Pieter in't Veldr, and David J. Keffer, J. Chem. Phys. 134, 144902 (2011).
July 25 — Canceled —
Spring 2011
Date Discussion Leader Article
Jan. 31 Selcuk Yasar The Role of Cholesterol and Structurally Related Molecules in Enhancing Transfection of Cationic Liposome−DNA Complexes, Alexandra Zidovska, Heather M. Evans, Ayesha Ahmad, Kai K. Ewert and Cyrus R. Safinya, J. Phys. Chem. B 113, 5208–5216 (2009).
Feb. 7 Condensed Matter Seminar — 11:15 in Goessmann 153 Sergei Urazhdin
Spin-Based Microwave Nano-Oscillators - Note Special Day and Location
Feb. 14 Hunter King Pleats in crystals on curved surfaces, William T. M. Irvine, Vincenzo Vitelli, and Paul M. Chaikin, Nature 468, 947–951 (2010).
Feb. 21 Presidents' Day No Journal Club
Feb. 28 Narayanan Menon Why do particle clouds generate electric charges?, T. Pähtz, H. J. Herrmann, and T. Shinbrot, Nature Physics 6, 364–368 (2010).
March 7 Biophysics Meeting No Journal Club
March 14 Greg Farrell — Canceled due to technical difficulties —
March 21 March Meeting No Journal Club
March 28 Evan Hohlfeld Special Seminar
A General Theory of Mechanical Instabilities in Soft Solids
April 4 APS Meeting Debrief Come ready to give a summary of your favorite talks from the APS Biophysics and March Meetings.
April 11 Dianwen Zhang Two-color nanoscopy of three-dimensional volumes by 4Pi detection of stochastically switched fluorophores, Daniel Aquino, Andreas Schönle, Claudia Geisler, Claas v Middendorff, Christian A Wurm, Yosuke Okamura, Thorsten Lang, Stefan W Hell, and Alexander Egner, Nature Methods 8, 353–359 (2011).
April 18 Patriot's Day No Journal Club
April 25 Dominique Cambou Fluctuations and Scaling in Creep Deformation, Jari Rosti, Juha Koivisto, Lasse Laurson, and Mikko J. Alava, PRL 105, 100601 (2010).
May 2 James Hanna Completely inelastic ball, T. Gilet, N. Vandewalle, and S. Dorbolo, PRE 79, 055201 (2009).
May 9 Greg Farrell Jammed particulate systems are inherently nonharmonic, Carl F. Schreck, Thibault Bertrand, Corey S. O'Hern, and M.D. Shattuck, arXiv:1012.0369v1 (2011).
May 16 Tony Dinsmore Reshaping Elastic Nanotubes Via Self-Assembly of Surface-Adhesive Nanoparticles, Josep C. Pàmies and Angelo Cacciuto, PRL 106, 045702 (2011).
May 23 Ana Hocevar Special Seminar
Lipid vesicle assemblies as models of simple animal tissues
Fall 2010
Date Discussion Leader Article
Sept. 20 Mitch Mailman Special Seminar
Evidence for a Diverging Length Scale in Granular Packings at the Onset of Unjamming
Sept. 27 Conference Debrief Come ready to give a summary of your favorite talks from the Aspen and/or New Mech workshops.
Oct. 4 Peter Buchak Special Seminar
The Clapping Book: Wind-Driven Oscillations in a Stack of Elastic Sheets
Oct. 11 Columbus Day No Journal Club
Oct. 18    
Oct. 25 Narayanan Menon Teaching the principles of statistical dynamics, Kingshuk Ghosh, Ken A. Dill, MAndar M. Inamdar, Effrosyni Seitaridou, and Rob Phillips, Am. J. Phys. 74, 123 (2006). [For an experimental approach, see also here.]
Nov. 1 Simona Maccarrone Interaction between like-charged polyelectrolyte-colloid complexes in electrolyte solutions: A Monte Carlo simulation study in the Debye–Hückel approximation, D. Truzzolillo, F. Bordi, F. Sciortino, and S. Sennato, J. Chem. Phys. 133, 024901 (2010).
Nov. 8 Hunter King Granular Character of Particle Rafts, Pietro Cicuta and Dominic Vella, PRL 102, 138302 (2009).
Nov. 15 Greg Farrell Equilibration of Granular Subsystems, F. Lechenault and Karen E. Daniels, Soft Matter 6, 3074 (2010).
Nov. 22 Ben Machta Special Seminar
Implications of Criticality in Cell Membranes
Nov. 29 Robert Schroll Contact lines for fluid surface adhesion, Markus Deserno, Martin Michael Müller, and Jemal Guven, Phys. Rev. E 76, 011605 (2007).
Dec. 6 James Hanna The weight of a falling chain, revisited, Eugenio Hamm and Jean-Christophe Géminard, Am. J. Phys. 78, 828 (2010).
Dec. 13 Selcuk Yasar Postponed
Summer 2010
Date Discussion Leader Article
May 17 José Bico, ESPCI Special Seminar: 4:00 PM in Has 409
Elasto-capillarity: Deforming an Elastic Structure with a Liquid Droplet
May 24 Greg Farrell A phase diagram for jammed matter, Chaoming Song, Ping Wang, and Hernán A. Makse, Nature 435, 629 (2008).
May 31 Memorial Day No Journal Club
June 7 Hunter King Elasticity of an interfacial partical raft, D. Vella, P. Aussillous, and L. Mahadevan, Europhys. Lett. 68, 212 (2004).
June 14 Christian Santangelo Deterministic Folding in Stiff Elastic Membranes, T. Tallinen, J. A. Åström, and J. Timonen, PRL 101, 106101 (2008).
June 21 Robert Schroll Curvature Condensation and Bifurcation in an Elastic Shell, Moumita Das, Ashkan Vaziri, Arshad Kudrolli, and L. Mahadevan, PRL 98, 014301 (2007).
June 28 — Bye —
July 5 Florence Rouyer Special Seminar
Transport of Liquid and Particles in Foams
[For background, see here and here.]
July 12 Georges Gauthier Special Seminar: 12:30 in Has 409
Particle Pressure in Sheared Suspensions
July 19 James Hanna Pulling bubbles from a bath, Justin C. T. Kao, Andrea L. Blakemore, and A. E. Hosoi, Phys. Fluids 22, 061705 (2010).
July 26 Lee Walsh Concentration Dependent Diffusion of Self-Propelled Rods, Arshad Kudrolli, PRL 104, 088001 (2010).
Spring 2010
Date Discussion Leader Article
Jan. 11 Tony Dinsmore Measurement of Lateral Adhesion Forces at the Interface between a Liquid Drop and a Substrate, Rafael Tadmor, Prashant Bahadur, Aisha Leh, Hartmann E. N’guessan, Rajiv Jaini, and Lan Dang, PRL 103, 266101 (2009).
Jan. 18 MLK Day No Journal Club
Jan. 25 Narayanan Menon Nonequilibrium Fluctuation Relation for Sheared Micellar Gel in a Jammed State, Sayantan Majumdar and A. K. Sood, PRL 101, 078301 (2008).
Feb. 1 Robert Schroll Viscoelastic effects in the spreading of liquids, Alain Carré, Jean-Claude Gastel, and Martin E. R. Shanahan, Nature 379, 432 (1996).
Feb. 8 Christian Santangelo Topological instabilities of spherical vesicles, O. V. Manyuhina, A. Fasolino, P. C. M. Christianen, and M. I. Katsnelson, PRE 80, 010403 (2009).
Feb. 15 Presidents' Day No Journal Club
Feb. 22 Lee Walsh Bubble Pinch-Off in a Rotating Flow, Raymond Bergmann, Anders Andersen, Devaraj van der Meer, and Tomas Bohr, PRL 102, 204501 (2009). [For some background, see also here.]
March 1 Benny Davidovitch The Free-Energy Landscape of Clusters of Attractive Hard Spheres, Guangnan Meng, Natalie Arkus, Michael P. Brenner, and Vinothan N. Manoharan, Science 29 327, 560 (2010). [See also here.]
March 8 Greg Farrell Dynamic Equilibrium Mechanism for Surface Nanobubble Stabilization, Michael P. Brenner and Detlef Lohse, PRL 101, 214505 (2008).
March 15 March Meeting No Journal Club
March 22 March Meeting Debrief Come ready to give a summary of your favorite talks from the APS March Meeting.
March 29 Adrian Parsegian Thermodynamics Predicts How Confinement Modifies the Dynamics of the Equilibrium Hard-Sphere Fluid, Jeetain Mittal, Jeffrey R. Errington, and Thomas M. Truskett, PRL 96, 177804 (2006).
April 5 Donald Blair Tuning Density Profiles and Mobility of Inhomogeneous Fluids, Gaurav Goel, William P. Krekelberg, Jeffrey R. Errington, and Thomas M. Truskett, PRL 100, 106001 (2008).
April 12 Hunter King Generality of shear thickening in dense suspensions, Eric Brown, Nicole A. Forman, Carlos S. Orellana, Hanjun Zhang, Benjamin W. Maynor, Douglas E. Betts, Joseph M. DeSimone, and Heinrich M. Jaeger, Nature Mat. 9, 220 (2010).
April 19 Patriot's Day No Journal Club
April 26 — Canceled —
May 3 Marcelo Dias Tension-Induced Multistability in Inextensible Helical Ribbons, E. L. Starostin and G. H. M. van der Heijden, PRL 101, 084301 (2008).
May 10 James Hanna Topological fluid mechanics of stirring, Philip L. Boyland, Hassan Aref, and Mark A. Stremler, JFM 403, 277–304 (2000).
Fall 2009
Date Discussion Leader Article
Oct. 19 Christian Santangelo Vortexlike Topological Defects in Nematic Colloids: Chiral Colloidal Dimers and 2D Crystals, U. Tkalec, M. Ravnik, S. Žumer, and I. Muševič, PRL 103, 127801 (2009).
Oct. 26 Simona Maccarrone Coacervation of cationic gemini sufactant with weakly charged anionic polyacrylamide, Manli Deng, Meiwen Cao, and Yilin Wang, J Phys Chem B 113, 9436 (2009).
Nov. 2 Hunter King Stomatocyte–discocyte–echinocyte sequence of the human red blood cell: Evidence for the bilayer–couple hypothesis from membrane mechanics, Gerald Lim H. W., Michael Wortis, and Ranjan Mukhopadhyay, PNAS 99, 16766 (2002).
Nov. 9 Ben Gamari Generic Phase Diagram of Active Polar Films, R. Voituriez, J. F. Joanny, and J. Prost, PRL 96, 028102 (2006).
Nov. 16 Greg Grason Mapping vesicle shapes into the phase diagram: A comparison of experiment and theory, H.-G. Döbereiner, E. Evans, M. Kraus, U. Seifert, and M. Wortis, PRE 55, 4458 (1997).
Nov. 23 Kiyotaka Akabori Direct measurement of critical Casimir forces, C. Hertlein, L. Helden, A. Gambassi, S. Dietrich and C. Bechinger, Nature 451, 172 (2008).
Nov. 30 Homin Shin Direct Measurement of the Twist Penetration Length in a Single Smectic A Layer of Colloidal Virus Particles, Edward Barry, Zvonimir Dogic, and Robert B. Meyer, J Phys Chem B 113, 3910 (2008).
Dec. 7 Marcelo Dias Morphogenesis of Growing Soft Tissues, Julien Dervaux and Martine Ben Amar, PRL 101, 068101 (2008).
Dec. 14 Lee Walsh The Shape and Motion of a Ruck in a Rug, John M. Kolinski, Pascale Aussillous, and L. Mahadevan, arXiv:0906.4089v1 (2009).