Open Calls for Papers
EPJ ST Special Issue: Recurrence-Based Methods Across Disciplines: From Theory to Practice
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- Published on 02 June 2025
Guest Editors: Norbert Marwan, Gertrudis Hortensia González-Gómez, Claudia Lerma, Juan Carlos Echeverria Arjonilla, Charles L. Webber, Jr.
This special issue will showcase recent advancements and interdisciplinary applications of recurrence plots (RPs) and recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) as tools for comprehending the dynamics of complex systems. RPs and RQA are increasingly recognized across various fields due to their ability to uncover hidden structures, transitions, and coupling phenomena in time series and spatial data, especially in the presence of noise, nonstationarity, and limited data length.
EPJ ST Special Issue: From Microscopic/Mesoscopic Particle Aggregates (Formations) to Macroscopic Structures
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- Published on 20 May 2025
Guest Editors: Liubov Toropova, Irina Nizovtseva
Transport processes around phase interfaces, together with thermodynamic properties and kinetic phenomena, control the formation of dendritic patterns. Using the thermodynamic and kinetic data of phase interfaces obtained on an atomic scale, one can analyse the formation of a single dendrite and the growth of a dendritic ensemble. This is the result of recent progress in theoretical methods and computational algorithms calculated using powerful computer clusters.
EPJ ST Special Issue: Unraveling Spatio-Temporal Dynamics in Stochastic and Complex Systems
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- Published on 16 May 2025
Guest Editors: Fernanda S. Matias, Edson D. Leonel, Marcos G.E. da Luz and Marcus W. Beims
Spatial patterns are ubiquitous in nature, emerging in rather diverse phenomena,like biological motifs (as those described by the Turing model), social organization in communities, sedimentary layers in geology, and Bérnard cells in fluid convection, to cite just a few. However, depending on the drives and interactions leading to these formations, the spatial structures themselves can evolve with time, characterizing thus a spatio-temporal dynamics. This is typical of systems displaying stochasticity and complexity, consequently taking place in critical phenomena, complex networks, turbulence, chaotic systems, sociophysics, econophyiscs, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, open quantum systems, nonlinear optics, ecology, climate problems, etc.
EPJ ST Special Issue: Recent Advances in Plasma Physics & Materials Surface Modification in China
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- Published on 23 April 2025
Guest Editors: Bin Liao, Jie Wu, Fugang Qi, Kai Wang
In 1928, the American scientist Irving Langmuir first introduced the term "plasma" into physics to describe the state of matter in a gas discharge tube. It is regarded as the fourth state of matter, mainly composed of electrons, ions, free radicals and neutral particles (atoms or molecules), whose movement is controlled by electromagnetic forces.
As one of the application fields of plasma, ion beam surface modification is an interdisciplinary subject developed from the intersection of nuclear physics, materials science, condensed matter physics, microelectronics and other disciplines. Its rise and development have opened up a new path for the synthesis of new materials and the study of micro-nano mechanisms in materials science and condensed matter physics.
EPJ ST Special Issue: A Passion for Science, a Heart for People - A Special Issue in Memoriam of Danuta Makowiec
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- Published on 16 April 2025
Guest Editors: Henryk Fukś, Jürgen Kurths, Ryszard Kutner, Alberto Porta, Aneta Stefanovska, Zbigniew R. Struzik
We dedicate this Special Issue of the EPJ ST to our colleague Danuta Makowiec, who passed away last year after a long, courageous fight with a brutal illness. A physicist by training, Danuta became a driving force behind complex systems science in Poland and internationally -- specifically in applications of physics methods to complexity of various origins and aiming at numerous applications, where she prioritised medical domains. Her research covered disciplines as diverse as cellular automata, complex networks, econophysics, sociophysics and in particular cardiophysics, just to mention those areas of science where she was most active.
EPJ ST Special Issue: In Memoriam Hermann Haken: Synergetics and Self-organisation in Complex Systems
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- Published on 28 October 2024
Guest Editors: Axel Hutt, Axel Pelster, Christian Uhl and Jürgen Kurths
With this special issue in The European Journal of Physics Special Topics the Guest Editors would like to commemorate the physicist Hermann Haken who passed away in August 2024 and who was one of the foremost researchers in theoretical physics and complex systems since the beginning of the 1960s. He was the first to describe the solid-state laser by quantum field theory and then ingeniously extended the deep physical insights gained from the laser to diverse complex systems in hydrodynamics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience as well as psychology, sociology, economy and philosophy, thus founding the interdisciplinary research field ’Synergetics’. It is envisaged that former colleagues and various other researchers influenced by Hermann Haken’s work will be paying tribute to this work in this Memorial issue. They are invited to describe recent developments that build on the repercussions of Hermann Haken’s legacy and extend his ideas to new directions. Thus, the Memorial issue will demonstrate the strong significance and breadth of Hermann Haken’s insight in fostering the massive progress in theoretical physics and complexity science of recent and future times.
EPJ ST Special Issue: Energy Saving in Physics Research and Applications
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- Published on 23 September 2024
Guest Editors: Jürgen Kurths, Holger Kersten, Harinipriya Seshadri, B. Ananthanarayan
Energy saving is one of the most challenging problems and of highest relevance due to the expected impacts on limiting or mitigating global climate change. While there is a lot of research and development going into novel energy saving science and technology, research itself - both fundamental and applied, academic and industrial - can self-examine its own practices, quite independently of the scale of their contribution, to lead the way in setting, fostering and promoting best approaches and practices in energy saving.
This issue in EPJ ST aims thus to collect papers in which the research community, being active in various academic and industrial fields and institutions, reflects on how to contribute itself, from individual up to most general initiatives to energy savings in daily operations and research work, to the global goal of saving energy resources.
EPJ ST Special Issue: Space Manufacturing: Materials, Mechanics and Manufacturing
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- Published on 17 June 2024
Guest Editors: Aloke Kumar, Ranajay Ghosh, Seetha Raghavan
Space travel and habitation have taken a renewed vigour in the last few years, spurred by new scientific and commercial breakthroughs in launch vehicles, satellites, payload capabilities and superior ground testing research. Militaries and industries worldwide have joined and reinforced these trends for their missions with multiple new space agencies and mandates set up over the last few years. This has ignited an international race towards exploring all potential applications and uses of the extra-terrestrial environment, ranging from using the space environment for deploying powerful instrument platforms to entirely new concepts on extra-terrestrial production chains. An explosion of new scientific research has accompanied this ‘return to space’ movement. In particular, space manufacturing represents a convergence of various disciplines, including materials science, biology, biophysics, mechanics, and fabrication. It encompasses a spectrum of endeavours, from terrestrial manufacturing for the new space age to in-orbit assembly and manufacturing (ISAM) and manufacturing for sustainable space settlements. Realizing the potential of space manufacturing demands dedicated research efforts in the years to come. The scope of space manufacturing is vast and encompasses numerous possibilities. Space habitats, for instance, could be constructed using materials fabricated in space, tailored to withstand the rigours of cosmic radiation and microgravity.
EPJ ST Special Issue: Additive Manufacturing for Particle Accelerators
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- Published on 01 March 2024
Guest Editors: Chuan Zhang and Michael Mayerhofer
Particle accelerators are essential tools for basic research and also have a wide range of important applications for energy, environment, healthcare, materials, security, etc. However, manufacturing complexity and cost are often limiting factors in developing new-type particle accelerators and increasing their usage. Additive manufacturing, which is revolutionizing our way to design and build things, could provide one promising solution to the dilemma. When additive manufacturing meets particle accelerators, the difficulties of the traditional technologies in manufacturing very complex structures e.g. advanced water-cooling channels can be easily overcome so that not only the construction time and cost of particle accelerators will be reduced considerably but also novel designs for better accelerator performance can be enabled.
