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1 Editorial
The EPJE Topical Issue “Festschrift in honor of Philip (Fyl) Pincus” is dedicated to a renowned theoretical physicist working on soft condensed matter, polymer physics, and biological physics. In the earlier part of his highly distinguished career, Pincus worked in areas related to traditional solid-state physics: magnetism, superconductivity, one-dimensional conductors, and spin-Peierls transitions. Over the last five decades, however, his body of work and communicative skills have had an oversized catalyzing effect on the polymer and soft matter communities. Pincus has been a mentor to many in the soft matter community, in particular, to generations of students, junior scientists and engineers.
His seminal work on the elongational energy of self-avoiding chains forms the basis for the study of polymers in confined geometries [1]. Pincus introduced the idea that polymers under force break up into independent blobs with a size determined by the strength of the force. These blobs are referred to as “Pincus blobs” in de Gennes' book on polymer physics. Furthermore, Pincus’ scaling approach to elucidating the physical properties of polyelectrolytes is world-renowned, even though the statistical mechanics of polyelectrolytes remains incomplete [2,3,4].
Pincus was among the first scientists to recognize the importance of interfacial problems in soft condensed matter from a fundamental viewpoint as well as from the practical technological side. He is among the pioneers in having developed concepts essential to understanding the practical problem of colloid stabilization by adsorbing or grafting polymers [5]. These contributions have received both theoretical and experimental attention. For example, he inspired and provided the scientific leadership for the first synchrotron study that was carried out to measure the concentration profile for polymers near interfaces [6].
In addition to his major contributions to polymer physics, for which he was awarded the American Physical Society's Polymer Physics Prize in 1992, Pincus has further been a leading scientist in elucidating, jointly with his collaborators, the unique role of electrostatic interactions in bio-membranes. He is among a handful of scientists worldwide who played a central role in understanding how charge fluctuation effects can lead to attractive interactions between similarly charged membranes [7, 8].
More insights into Fyl’s life story may be gleaned from an Oral History interview by David Zierler in 2020, as part of the Niels Bohr Library and Archives of the American Institute of Physics’ History Programs Division [9].
Our topical issue is comprised of 49 contributions covering a broad range of topics, which advance the understanding of soft and biological matter systems from physical and chemical aspects. More than 200 scientists globally contributed to this noteworthy Festschrift, which is divided into thematic categories. The first theme is focused on equilibrium and non-equilibrium soft matter systems, including topics associated with polymers and colloidal systems, in uncharged and charged systems, where Pincus has made lasting contributions [Group A, references 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]. In addition, other contributions are concerned with liquids, flowing and active matter, and granular systems [Group A, references 22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31]. The second theme groups together a large number of contributions that are focused on biological physics, including properties of the cell cytoskeleton and associated proteins [Group B, references 32,33,34], intrinsically disordered proteins [Group B, references 35,36,37,38], lipid membranes, membrane-associated proteins, and assembly and interactions of viral capsids with lipids and polymers [Group B, references 39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50]. A third group of contributions is in the nascent field of biomolecular and biomimetic materials at the crossroads between physics, chemistry, bioengineering, and materials science [Group C, references 51,52,53,54,55,56]. Finally, systems dealing with far-from-equilibrium states of matter in biology are addressed by a few contributions focusing on the physical properties of living cells [Group D, references 57, 58].
Fyl Pincus has made significant contributions to soft condensed matter—a niche field of physics and chemistry that was created in the 1970s and 1980s (also known then as “complex fluids”). We are convinced that Fyl is gratified to see how soft matter has blossomed in the twenty-first century into a flourishing field with an enormous impact on science, technology, and society.
David Andelman, Jean-Marc Di Meglio
and Cyrus R. Safinya
Guest Editors
References
P.A. Pincus, Excluded volume effects and stretched polymer chains. Macromolecules 9, 386 (1976)
P.A. Pincus, J.-F. Joanny, Electrolyte and polyelectrolyte solutions: limitations of scaling laws, osmotic compressibility and thermoelectric power. Polymer 21, 274 (1980)
T.A. Witten, P.A. Pincus, Structure and viscosity of interpenetrating polyelectrolyte chains. Europhys. Lett. 3, 315 (1978)
P.A. Pincus, Colloid stabilization with grafted polyelectrolytes. Macromolecules 19, 2509 (1991)
J. Klein, P.A. Pincus, Interactions between surfaces with adsorbed polymers: poor solvents. Macromolecules 15, 1129 (1982)
J.M. Bloch, M. Sansone, F. Rondelez, D.G. Peiffer, P.A. Pincus, M.W. Kim, P. Eisenberger, Concentration profile of a dissolved polymer near the air-liquid interface: an X-ray fluorescence study. Phys. Rev. Lett. 54, 1039 (1985)
P.A. Pincus, S.A. Safran, Charge fluctuations and membrane attractions. Europhys. Lett. 42, 103 (1998)
A.W.C. Lau, D. Levine, P.A. Pincus, Novel electrostatic attraction from plasmon fluctuations. Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 4116 (2000)
https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/46742
(A) Soft Matter: polymeric and colloidal systems/ionic liquids/flowing, active, and granular systems
P.A. Taylor, M.J. Stevens, Explicit solvent machine-learned coarse-grained model of sodium polystyrene sulfonate to capture polymer structure and dynamics. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 97 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00355-x
H. Bonneau, M. Arutkin, R. Chen, J.A. Forrest, E. Raphaël, T. Salez, On the bridge hypothesis in the glass transition of freestanding polymer films. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 8 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00272-z
G. Morrison, D. Thirumalai, Scaling regimes for wormlike chains confined to cylindrical surfaces under tension. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 6 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00384-6
C. Balzer, Z.-G. Wang, Electroresponse of weak polyelectrolyte brushes. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 82 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00341-3
J.-M. Carrillo, Y. Wang, R. Kumar, B.G. Sumpter, Coarse-grained explicit-solvent molecular dynamics simulations of semidilute unentangled polyelectrolyte solutions. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 92 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00342-2
A. Schlaich, S. Tyagi, S. Kesselheim, M. Sega, C. Holm, Renormalized charge and dielectric effects in colloidal interactions: a numerical solution of the nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann equation for unknown boundary conditions. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 80 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00334-2
Hu. Ruixuan, A. Majee, J. Dobnikar, R. Podgornik, Electrostatic interactions between charge regulated spherical macroions. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 115 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00373-9
L. López-Flores, M. Olvera de la Cruz, Induced phase transformation in ionizable colloidal nanoparticles. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 122 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00386-4
A. Bakhshandeh, Y. Levin, Charge fluctuations in charge-regulated systems: dependence on statistical ensemble. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 65 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00325-3
J. Kim, Z. Wang, K. Lahlil, P. Davidson, T. Gacoin, J. Kim, Charge-driven liquid-crystalline behavior of ligand-functionalized nanorods in apolar solvent. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 86 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00345-z
M. Nguyen, K. Shen, N. Sherck, S. Köhler, R. Gupta, K.T. Delaney, M.S. Shell, G.H. Fredrickson, A molecularly informed field-theoretic study of the complexation of polycation PDADMA with mixed micelles of sodium dodecyl sulfate and ethoxylated surfactants. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 75 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00332-4
M. Muthukumar, Fluctuations, structure, and size inside coacervates. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 79 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00335-1
Y.K. Lee, J.B. Cho, J. Kim, W.B. Lee, Y.S. Jho, Anomalous diffusion of lithium-anion clusters in ionic liquids. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 105 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00365-9
R. Kroll, M. Gottlieb, Y. Tsori, Surface tension between liquids containing antagonistic and regular salts. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 116 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00378-4
L.A. Baptista, M. Sevilla, M. Wagner, K. Kremer, R. Cortes-Huerto, Chilling alcohol on the computer: isothermal compressibility and the nucleation of hydrogen-bond clusters in liquid propan-1-ol. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 117 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00380-w
V.V. Vasisht, M.L. Goff, K. Martens, J.-L. Barrat, Permanent shear localization in dense disordered materials due to microscopic inertia. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 106 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00367-7
R.E. Rosensweig, Spin-up flow in ferrofluids: a toy model. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 83 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00340-4
X. Deng, P. Sheng, Evolution of channel flow and Darcy’s law beyond the critical Reynolds number. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 37 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00289-4
I. Eshghi, A. Zidovska, A.Y. Grosberg, Model chromatin flows: numerical analysis of linear and nonlinear hydrodynamics inside a sphere. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 69 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00327-1
Y. Hosaka, D. Andelman, S. Komura, Pair dynamics of active force dipoles in an odd-viscous fluid. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 18 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00265-y
M. Scandolo, J. Pausch, M.E. Cates, Active Ising models of flocking: a field-theoretic approach. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 103 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00364-w
A. Movsheva, T.A. Witten, Granular convergence as an iterated local map. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 84 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00343-1
(B) Biophysics: cell cytoskeleton and associated proteins/intrinsically disordered proteins/lipid membranes/virus capsid assembly
A. Gannavarapu, S. Arzash, I. Muntz, J.L. Shivers, A.-M. Klianeva, G.H. Koenderink, F.C. MacKintosh, Effects of local incompressibility on the rheology of composite biopolymer networks. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 36 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-024-00422-x
N. Krishnan, N. Sarpangala, M. Gamez, A. Gopinathan, J.L. Ross, Effects of cytoskeletal network mesh size on cargo transport. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 109 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00358-8
J.A. Labastide, D.A. Quint, R.K. Cullen, B. Maelfeyt, J.L. Ross, A. Gopinathan, Non-specific cargo-filament interactions slow down motor-driven transport. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 134 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00394-4
M. Kravikass, G. Koren, O.A. Saleh, R. Beck, From isolated polyelectrolytes to star-like assemblies: the role of sequence heterogeneity on the statistical structure of the intrinsically disordered neurofilament-low tail domain. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 13 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-024-00409-8
H.P. Truong, I.L. Morgan, G. Koren, R. Avinery, R. Beck, O.A. Saleh, Pincus blob elasticity in an intrinsically disordered protein. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 100 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00360-0
R. Vancraenenbroeck, H. Hofmann, Electrostatics and hydrophobicity in the dynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 133 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00383-7
H. Cho, J. Lee, H. Nho, K. Lee, B. Gim, J. Lee, J. Lee, K.K. Ewert, Y. Li, S.C. Feinstein, C.R. Safinya, L.S. **, M.C. Choi, Synchrotron X-ray study of intrinsically disordered and polyampholytic Tau 4RS and 4RL under controlled ionic strength. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 73 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00328-0
S. Mielke, R. Sorkin, J. Klein, Effect of cholesterol on the mechanical stability of gel-phase phospholipid bilayers studied by AFM force spectroscopy. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 77 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00338-y
T. Sarkar, O. Farago, Characterizing the heterogeneity of membrane liquid-ordered domains. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 99 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00359-7
D.W. Allender, M. Schick, On the force between “rafts.” Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 85 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00347-x
R. Lipowsky, Multispherical shapes of vesicles with intramembrane domains. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 4 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00399-z
J. Alfken, C. Neuhaus, A. Major, A. Taskina, C. Hoffmann, M. Ganzella, A. Petrovic, D. Zwicker, R. Fernández-Busnadiego, R. Jahn, D. Milovanovic, T. Salditt, Vesicle condensation induced by synapsin: condensate size, geometry, and vesicle shape deformations. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 8 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00404-5
T. Suwatthee, D. Kerr, S. Maltseva, C.L. Dulberger, L.H. Hwang, B.R. Slaw, W. Bu, B. Lin, E.J. Adams, K.Y.C. Lee, MFG-E8: a model of multiple binding modes associated with ps-binding proteins. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 114 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00372-w
T. Czajka, C. Neuhaus, J. Alfken, M. Stammer, Y. Chushkin, D. Pontoni, C. Hoffmann, D. Milovanovic, T. Salditt, Lipid vesicle pools studied by passive X-ray microrheology. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 123 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00375-7
R. Granek, I. Hoffmann, E.G. Kelley, M. Nagao, P.M. Vlahovska, A. Zilman, Dynamic structure factor of undulating vesicles: finite-size and spherical geometry effects with application to neutron spin echo experiments. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 12 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00400-9
J. Rueben, D. Steer, C. Leal, Super-swelling behavior of stacked lipid bilayer systems. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 67 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00322-6
D. Bolmatov, C.P. Collier, J. Katsaras, M.O. Lavrentovich, Physical insights into biological memory in phospholipid membranes. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 2 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00391-7
J.F. Torres-Salgado, M.V. Villagrana-Escareño, A.L. Duran-Meza, X.F. Segovia-Gonzalez, R.D. Cadena-Myung, W.M. Gelbart, C.M. Knobler, J. Ruiz-García, Spontaneous bilayer wrap** of virus particles by a phospholipid Langmuir monolayer. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 118 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00366-8
R. Asor, S.W. Singaram, Y. Levi-Kalisman, M.F. Hagan, U. Raviv, Effect of ionic strength on the assembly of simian vacuolating virus capsid protein around poly(styrene sulfonate). Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 107 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00363-x
(C) Biomolecular materials: biomimetic systems/drug delivery systems
I. Benavides, W.A. Scott, X. Cai, Z.H. Zhou, T.J. Deming, Preparation and stability of pegylated poly(S-alkyl-L-homocysteine) coacervate core micelles in aqueous media. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 81 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00339-x
P. Lyu, Z. Ding, X. Man, Accelerating the stimuli-responsive bending of a gel using mechanical constraints. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 40 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00303-9
D. Deviri, S.A. Safran, Mechanosensitivity of phase separation in an elastic gel. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 16 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-024-00405-y
T. Yamamoto, W. Li, Polymer brush inspired by ribosomal RNA transcription. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 61 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00323-5
G. Halbi, I. Fayer, D. Aranovich, S. Gat, M.J. Pavan, D. Nachmias, D.S. Sanchez, A. Brik, R. Granek, A. Bernheim-Groswasser, Smart design of universally decorated nanoparticles for drug delivery applications driven by active transport. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 74 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00331-5
V. Steffes, S. MacDonald, J. Crowe, M. Murali, K.K. Ewert, Y. Li, C.R. Safinya, Lipids with negative spontaneous curvature decrease the solubility of the cancer drug paclitaxel in liposomes. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 128 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00388-2
(D) Physics of Living Cells
R. Golkov, Y. Shokef, Many-body interactions between contracting living cells. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 14 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-024-00407-w
A.S. Vishen, J. Prost, P. Sens, Quantitative comparison of cell-cell detachment force in different experimental setups. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 22 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-024-00416-9
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Andelman, D., Di Meglio, JM. & Safinya, C.R. Editorial. Eur. Phys. J. E 47, 45 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-024-00439-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-024-00439-2