Comprehensive review of the physics of interacting particles

Most scientific articles in the field of physics are very short and deal with a very narrow subject. A notable exception to this is a recent article published by physicists from the universities of Münster and Düsseldorf. The article is 127 pages long, cites a total of 1075 sources, and covers a wide range of branches of physics – from biophysics to quantum mechanics.

Time axis indicating the number of publications relating to the functional theory of dynamic density. Credit: M. te Vrugt et al.

The article is a so-called review article and was written by physicists Michael te Vrugt and Professor Raphael Wittkowski of the Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Center for Nanoscience University of Münster, with Professor Hartmut Löwen of the Institute for Theoretical Physics II of the University of Düsseldorf. The purpose of these review articles is to provide an introduction to a certain area and to summarize and assess the current state of research in this area for the benefit of other researchers.

“In our case, we are dealing with a theory that is used in very many fields – the functional theory of dynamic density (GFCI)”, explains the last author Raphael Wittkowski. “Since we are dealing with all aspects of the subject, the article turned out to be very long and very broad.”

GFCI is a method of describing systems made up of a large number of interacting particles such as those found in liquids, for example. Understanding these systems is important in many fields of research such as chemistry, solid state physics or biophysics. This in turn leads to a wide variety of applications for GFCI, for example in materials science and biology.

“The GFCI and associated methods have been developed and applied by a number of researchers in a variety of contexts,” explains lead author Michael te Vrugt. “We studied what approaches exist and how they relate – and to that end, we’ve had to do a lot of work as historians and detectives,” he adds.

The article was published in the journal Progress in physics, which has an impact factor of 30.91 – making it the leading journal in the field of condensed matter physics. He only publishes four to six articles per year. The first article on GFCI, written by Robert Evans, was also published in “Advances in Physics,” in 1979. “It makes it particularly gratifying that our review was also published in this journal,” says secondary author Hartmut Löwen. “It deals with all the important theoretical aspects and application areas of GFCI and will likely become standard work in our area of ​​research.”

Reference: “Classical Functional Theory of Dynamic Density: From Fundamentals to Applications” by Michael te Vrugt, Hartmut Löwen and Raphael Wittkowski, December 20, 2020, Progress in physics.
DOI: 10.1080 / 00018732.2020.1854965

The Wittkowski working group is funded by the German Research Foundation DFG (WI 4170 / 3-1). The Löwen working group also receives financial support from the DFG (LO 418 / 25-1).