Scientific articles in the field of physics are usually very short and deal with a very limited topic. A notable exception to this is an article recently published by physicists from the universities of Münster and Düsseldorf. The article is 127 pages long, contains a total of 1075 sources and deals with a wide range of branches of physics – from biophysics to quantum mechanics.
Tydas indicating the number of publications related to dynamic density functional theory. Credit: M. te Vrugt et al.
The article is a so-called review article and was written by physicists Michael te Vrugt and prof. Raphael Wittkowski from the Institute of Theoretical Physics and the Center for Soft Nanoscience at the University of Münstertogether with prof. Hartmut Löwen from the Institute for Theoretical Physics II at the University of Düsseldorf. The purpose of such review articles is to provide an introduction to a particular subject area and to summarize and evaluate the current state of research in this field for the benefit of other researchers.
“In our case, we are dealing with a theory that is used in many fields – the so-called dynamic density functional theory (DDFT),” explains Raphael Wittkowski, the last author. “Since we cover all aspects of the topic, the article seems to be very long and wide.”
DDFT is a method of describing systems that consist of a large number of interacting particles, such as in liquids. Understanding these systems is important in numerous research fields, such as chemistry, solid state physics or biophysics. This in turn leads to a wide range of applications for DDFT, for example in materials science and biology.
“DDFT and related methods have been developed and applied by a number of researchers in a variety of contexts,” says lead author Michael te Vrugt. “We researched the approaches that are there and how they are connected – and for this purpose we had to do a lot of work as historians and detectives,” he adds.
The article was published in the magazine Advances in physics, which has an impact factor of 30.91, making it the most important journal in the field of condica matter physics. It publishes only four to six articles a year. The first article on DDFT, written by Robert Evans, was also published in 1979 in “Advances in Physics”. “It makes it especially gratifying that our review was also published in this magazine,” says secondary author Hartmut Löwen. “It deals with all the important theoretical aspects and fields of application of DDFT and is likely to become a standard work in our field of research.”
Reference: “Classical dynamic density functional theory: from fundamental to applications” by Michael te Vrugt, Hartmut Löwen and Raphael Wittkowski, 20 December 2020, Advances 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).