Department of Physics of Complex Systems

Gregory Falkovich, Head


The Department of Physics of Complex Systems has research programs in fundamental and applied physics. Research in optics includes nonlinear optics, ultra fast optics and quantum optics, nano optics and nonlinear microscopy, laser cooling and trapping of atoms and ions for studied of Bose Einstein condensation, precision spectroscopy and quantum information processing. In condensed matter, research is concentrated on theory and experiment (in particular equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical physics, clustering of data, bioinformatics and systems biology, colloids, complex fluids, flame and wet front propagation, and membranes). Experimental and theoretical hydrodynamics concentrates on turbulence, spatio-temporal chaos, turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection, and dynamics of single micro-objects, such as polymers, vesicles, capsules and hydrodynamics of their solutions. Classical and quantum chaos, statistics of nodal lines in quantum systems and turbulence are studied theoretically. As an application, mathematical and computational methods for archaeological research are developed. Turbulence theory is developed in general and in applications to cloud physics. Theoretical physical biology deals with modeling living information systems, their molecular components and the way they evolve. Experimental bio-physics deals with bio-molecules, neural cultures, neurophysics, physics of the brain and physics of bio-systems.


N. Davidson

Atomic optics, interferometry and chaos.

Bose Einstein Condensation in Ultra cold atomic gas.

phase locking and synchronization of lasers
N. Davidson, Asher Friesem

electromagnetic-induced transparency and slow light
N. Davidson, Moshe shuker, Ofer Firstenberg, Amiram Ron


E. Domany

Development of tools and algorithms for large scale data analysis. Bioinformatics.

Computational Physics: equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of spin glasses
E. Domany, A. P. Young (UCSC)

Analysis of high-throughput biological data (in particular, gene expression data)
E. Domany, Several research groups at Weizmann, in the USA and in Europe; see below.

  1.  Controlled experiments on cell lines and mice (with D. Givol, V. Rotter, Y. Groner, L. Sachs; D. Gazit (Hadassa))

  2.  Development of antigen chips, applications for autoimmune diseases (with I. Cohen)

  3.  Studies human cancer samples; leukemia (with E. Canaani; G. Rechavi S. Izraeli (Sheba))

  4.  Colorectal cancer; (with D. Notterman (UMDNJ), F. Barany (Cornell), P. Paty (MSK), A. Levine (Princeton))

  5.  Prostate cancer; (with Z. Eshhar, A. Orr (TA Sourasky));

  6.  Glioblastoma; (with M. Hegi, R. Stupp (CHUV))

  7.  Breast and cervical cancer (with J-P Thiery, F. Radvanyi, X. Sastre, C. Rosty (Inst Curie))


N. Dudovich

Strong field light matter interactions

Attosecond Physics


G. Falkovich

Turbulence theory
G. Falkovich, Vladimir Lebedev, Ithak Fouxon, Stefano Musaccio

Cloud turbulence and rain.
G. Falkovich, Stas Derevyanko, Sergei Turitsyn

Statistical physics
G. Falkovich, Krzysztof Gawedzki, Raphael Chetrite


E. Moses

Physics of the Brain

Computation in Living Neuronal Networks

Neuronal Chips.

EEG and Brain Activity.


D. Mukamel

RNA and DNA denaturation.

Collective phenomena in systems far from thermal equilibrium.

Coarsening processes and slow dynamics.

Systems with long range interactions


D. Oron

ultrafast dynamics of semiconductor quantum dots

sub-diffraction limited imaging

Optical nonlinearity in plasmonic nanostructures

Quantum dot antennas in photovoltaic solar cells


Y. Silberberg

Nonlinear Optics and Quantum Optics.

Ultrafast optics and quantum coherent control.

Nonlinear microscopy.


U. Smilansky

Mathematical methods for Archaeological research.

Semi-classical quantization.

Chaotic scattering.

Quantum chaos.


J. Stavans

Genetic Networks
J. Stavans, Uri Alon

  1.  The SOS response

  2.  The Lambda phage decision circuit

Single-Molecule Biological Physics.

  1.  Proteins of the bacterial chromosome

  2.  DNA motor proteins

Evolution.


T. Tlusty

Molecular Codes
T. Tlusty, Uri Alon, Guy Sella

  1.  The Genetic Code

  2.  Transcription Regulatory Networks

  3.  Protein-Protein Networks

Mechanisms of Molecular Recognition
T. Tlusty, Joel Stavans

  1.  Specificity and Conformational Changes

  2.  Homologous Recombination

Hydrodynamics of Microfluidic Flows
T. Tlusty, Roy Bar-Ziv

2D Neuronal Networks
T. Tlusty, Elisha Moses