EPJ E Topical Issue: Festschrift in honor of Philip (Fyl) Pincus

Details

Published on 25 October 2022

Guest Editors: David Andelman, Jean-Marc Di Meglio, and Cyrus R. Safinya

Submissions are invited for a Topical Issue of EPJ E “Festschrift in honor of Philip (Fyl) Pincus”

Short Biosketch

Philip (Fyl) A. Pincus is among the leading theoreticians worldwide working on soft condensed matter, polymers, and complex fluids. His seminal work on the elongational energy of self-avoiding chains forms the basis for the study of polymers in confined geometries. Pincus introduced the idea that polymers under force break up into independent “blobs” (referred to as Pincus blobs in de Gennes' book on polymers) whose size is determined by the magnitude of the external force. In addition, Pincus is among the pioneers in having developed concepts necessary to understand the practical problem of colloid stabilization by adsorbed or grafted polymers. Furthermore, his scaling approach to elucidating the physical properties of polyelectrolytes is world-renowned even though the statistical mechanics of polyelectrolytes remains incomplete. His contributions have received both theoretical and experimental attention. Pincus was among the first scientists to recognize the importance of interfacial problems in soft condensed matter systems from a fundamental physics viewpoint as well as from the practical technological side. He has had a critical influence by having inspired and provided the scientific leadership for the first synchrotron study that was carried out on measuring the concentration profile for polymers near interfaces. In addition to his major contributions to polymer physics, for which he was awarded the American Physical Society's High Polymer Prize in 1992, Pincus has also been a leading scientist in elucidating (together with his students and collaborators) the unique role of electrostatic interactions in membrane systems. He and his collaborators were among a handful of independent “theoretical soft matter groups” worldwide that played a central role in understanding how charge fluctuation effects can lead to attractive interactions between similarly charged membranes. Aside from his numerous seminal contributions to the nascent soft- and bio-matter field, Pincus conducted highly visible research during the early stages of his career in more traditional solid-state physics, magnetism, superconductivity, one-dimensional conductors, and spin-Peierls transitions.

This Topical Issue will cover a broad range of topics of interest to the readership of EPJ E including advances in the understanding of physical and chemical aspects of Soft Matter and Biological Systems. (See: https://www.springer.com/journal/10189)

Original research papers, Reviews*, and Colloquia* are welcome (*We advise in this case that you check the suitability of your article with the guest editors beforehand). We invite contributors to communicate their intention to submit manuscripts for this Topical Issue to the Guest Editors as soon as possible. Please provide the tentative title of the paper and a short abstract. The full manuscripts should be submitted before the deadline directly to the EPJE Editorial Office at https://www.editorialmanager.com/epje/.

How to submit

Submissions should be clearly identified as intended for the Topical Issue “Festschrift in honor of Philip (Fyl) Pincus”. Papers will be published continuously and will appear as soon as accepted on the journal website. The electronic version of the Topical Issue will contain all accepted papers in the order of publication. All submitted papers will be refereed according to the usual high standards of the journal. More information about EPJ E, including instructions for authors, is available here.

Guest Editors of the Special issue:

David Andelman, School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Jean-Marc di Meglio, representative of the Editorial Board of EPJ E, CNRS & Université de Paris, Faculté de médecine, 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Cyrus R. Safinya, Materials Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Transformative Journal including Open Access

EPJ E is a transformative journal offering Open Access (OA) publication via the Open Choice programme and a growing number of Springer Compact “Publish and Read” arrangements that enable authors to publish OA at no direct cost (all costs are paid centrally).

Open Access option: Corresponding authors affiliated with institutes that have a Read and Publish Agreement with the Publisher are entitled to publish Open Access (OA) in EPJ E with the fee covered by the agreement, for further information see https://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/springer-open-choice/springer-compact. The Publisher will have the OA publication of the articles verified with the agreement partners before the articles are sent to production.

For those articles which are not approved by the agreement partners or which are not covered by a Read and Publish Agreement, Authors can select to publish under a subscription (non-OA) model and no publication fee will apply. If OA publication is required, publication fees will be covered by the authors.

All manuscripts should be submitted no later than 31 May 2023.