Stefano Ruffo

Stefano Ruffo is Full Professor of Condensed Matter Physics and Director of SISSA (Trieste).

He has been before at Pisa, Florence and Basilicata Universities in Italy. 

He has been Weston Visiting Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science (2009-2010) and Excellence Chair 

at the Physics Laboratory of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Lyon (2011-2013).

His research field is statistical physics and complex systems

He has been the Chairman of the C3 Commission (Statistical Physics) of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) and Vice-President of  IUPAP for the triennium 2012-2014. 

He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Erwin Schroedinger Institute (Vienna) (2016-18) and of the Board of the Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Division of the European Physical Society (2016-18). He is the Editor of Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulations (Elsevier) and member of the Editorial Board of Physica A (Elsevier).

 

 

 

Out-of-equilibrium physics in spontaneous synchronization

Spontaneous synchronization is a cooperative phenomenon common in nature which makes oscillators of different frequencies, if strongly coupled, operate together with a single common frequency. Such cooperative effects occur in physical and biological systems over length and time scales of several orders of magnitude. Examples: are flashing of fireflies, rhythmic applause in a concert hall, animal flocking behavior, electrical power-grids, etc. The most celebrated model of synchronization is the Kuramoto model, introduced in 1975, which is simple enough to allow quite a detailed analytical treatment, at the same time capturing several features of realistic systems. After discussing the general dynamical and statistical features of synchronization, I will discuss its out-of-equilibrium physical aspects when uncorrelated Langevin noise is added to the model.