The Physics of Flocking

John Toner is a theoretical physicist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Oregon, with a primary research focus in condensed matter physics. He predicted that soap is the best soundproofing material, and that quasicrystals are the hardest. He was awarded the American Physical Society's 2020 Onsager Prize in Statistical Physics for his pioneering work on flocking. He has also been the recipient of Simons and Gutzwiller Fellowships, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

'This book presents the seminal work of John Toner on the dynamics of flocks, which started the whole field of active matter. The presentation of these important theoretical results is pedagogical and self-contained and it will be very useful researchers with an interest in active matter.' Jean-Francois Joanny, Collège de France

• 1. Introduction and motivation: are birds smarter than nerds?; 2. Dynamical derivation (and a more conventional one) of the Mermin–Wagner–Hohenberg Theorem; or, why we can't all point the same way; 3. The dynamical Renormalization Group;; or, why we can do physics, illustrated by the KPZ equation; 4. Formulating the hydrodynamic model for flocking; 5. The dynamical renormalization group applied to the flocking problem; 6. Incompressible polar active fluids in the moving phase in dimensions d > 2: the 'canonical' exponents; 7. Heuristic argument for the canonical exponents ('20–20 hindsight handwaving argument'); 8. Incompressible flocks in spatial dimensions d = 2: mapping to the KPZ equation; 9. 'Malthusian' flocks (flocks with birth and death); Bibliography; Index.