Active Matter Across Scales and Environments

Active matter explores collective phenomena that emerge from energy-consuming components interacting with each other and their environment. Great strides have been made in understanding the surprising behavior of active fluids, from spontaneous flow to flocking to condensation with no attractive interactions, demonstrating the relevance of the active matter paradigm to systems as diverse as collections of living organisms, cell assemblies, the cell interior, and synthetically engineered materials. A recent new direction for the field has been the study and engineering of active solids - elastically coupled networks where active energy input allows for actuation and shape changes not possible in equilibrium. This conference will bring together scientists working across active matter and related disciplines, including hydrodynamic and elastic theories of active matter, living matter, classical and quantum materials far from equilibrium, and animate matter, to study the behavior of a broad range of active solids, from active hydrogels to metamaterials to mechanical structures composed of linked robotic components. It will aim to connect these distinct branches, find overarching principles that span these fields, and identify areas for future breakthroughs.