Acitve Brownian Particles

I am interested in the behavior of active Brownian particles as a model system of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. In particular, I study the chemotactic-like behavior of these particles and how to extract work from the system. For example, when the active particles interact with an external, space-dependent magnetic field, particles accumulate in the low-magnetic-field regions and there is a steady-state flux of particles. I address these problems using linear-response theory, dynamic density functional theory and Brownian dynamics simulations.

Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium Properties of Liquids

Density functional theory and dynamic density functional theory are based on the grand canonical ensemble. I am interested in extending these theories to a canonical ensemble, and using this to study the difference between the two ensembles in the case of systems with a small number of particles.

April 2018--present PhD Student, Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Germany (Advisors: A. Sharma and J.U. Sommer)

2014--2016 Masters Theoretical Physics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Advisor: G.J. Stephens)

2009--2014 Bachelor Physics and Astronomy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Advisors: F.C. MacKintosh and A. Sharma)

I gave the lectures, together with A. Sharma, for the course Statistical Mechanics of Liquids at the TU Dresden.

H. Merlitz, H.D. Vuijk, J. Brader, A. Sharma, and J.U. Sommer (2018)
Linear response approach to active Brownian particles in time-varying activity fields.
The Journal of Chemical Physics, 148(19), 194116.

H.D. Vuijk, A. Sharma, D. Mondal, J.U. Sommer, and H. Merlitz (2018)
Pseudochemotaxis in inhomogeneous active Brownian systems.
Physical Review E, 97(4), 042612.

H.D. Vuijk, R. Rens, M. Vahabi, F.C. MacKintosh, and A. Sharma (2015)
Driven diffusive systems with mutually interactive Langmuir kinetics.
Physical Review E, 91(3), 032143.