@article{THESIS,
      recid = {12661},
      author = {Chen, Shiqi},
      title = {Data-Driven Statistical Mechanical and Symmetry Insights  into Collective Coordinates in Small Optical Matter  Clusters},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2024-08},
      number = {THESIS},
      abstract = {Optical matter (OM) systems are a class of active  non-equilibrium materials. One of the most interesting  variants consists of nano-particles (NPs) that form  2-dimensional ordered structures when illuminated and  trapped by a focused laser beam. The force field developed  by the electrodynamic interactions that hold the NPs  together is non-conservative. Depending on the number of  NPs and the phase, amplitude and polarization properties of  the incident electromagnetic field, there are several  different metastable ordered structures that can be formed.  The relative stabilities of these structures can be tuned  by adjusting the aforementioned laser beam properties.  Therefore, the beam power, beam shape, spatial phase  profile, and polarization of the light create a rich  parameter subspace to explore stabilization, control and  design of particular OM structures and their dynamics. Each  of the one or more different ordered OM structures that  form in a focused laser beam constitutes a (metastable)  non-equilibrium steady state (NESS), which can, for  example, be used to build optical matter machines that do  mechanical work under a laser beam. In order to study the  mechanically dynamic and light scattering properties of OM  systems, I have developed and employed a data-driven  approach based on principal component analysis (PCA) and  harmonic linear discriminant analysis (HLDA) to determine  the collective modes of non-conservative and overdamped OM  structures. The approach is demonstrated via  electrodynamics-Langevin dynamics simulations six  electrodynamically-bound nanoparticles coupled to an  incident laser beam. I then use this data-driven approach  to build the PCA-HLDA reaction coordinates between stable  states connected by Markov state model (MSM), compute  entropy production rate, and analyze light scattering  properties as well as induced-polarization. These studies  represent a systematic endeavor to understanding and  eventually controlling optical matter systems. This  approach is also promising to the study of other  non-conservative and overdamped active matter systems.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/12661},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.12661},
}