This award supports theoretical research and education on quantum condensed matter. It seeks to deepen our understanding of novel quantum states of matter that emerge in many body systems, and to identify experimental signatures and realizations in solids and ultracold quantum gases. While the Landau paradigm of condensed matter accounts for conventional metals and broken symmetry states, here the focus is largely on phases that lie beyond this framework. For example, topological insulators and Weyl semi-metals are phases that admit a description in terms of non-interacting particles, but they possess certain characteristic topological properties. Transport of charge, energy and momentum in the presence of external perturbations are expected to reveal fundamental properties of such phases. These and the interplay with conventional orders, in particular topological defects such as vortices and domain walls, are proposed for study in the first part of this project.
The second part of this project addresses strongly correlated topological phases. Promising experimental regimes to realize them, such as flat bands of frustrated lattices and frustrated quantum magnets, will be investigated. Theoretical studies on analogues of fractional quantum Hall states, as well as generalizations to three dimensions are also proposed. Pinpointing the subtle correlations that characterize such states requires new probes, in particular those that can measure non-local properties. Proposing and evaluating such approaches will form the third focus area of this project.
This award also supports the education of a graduate student and a postdoctoral research associate at the frontiers of modern theoretical condensed matter physics. The PI will develop a new graduate-level course that cuts across traditional disciplines and integrates the methods and results from the research above. The results will also be disseminated via public lectures and non-technical summaries posted on a public website. From a technological perspective, the novel properties of the quantum states of matter to be investigated in this project can potentially lead to discovery of new materials with useful functionalities and future applications.
NonTechnical Summary
This award supports theoretical research and education on novel states of condensed matter systems. Although quantum mechanical laws govern the microscopic building blocks of matter, the properties observed on a macroscopic scale are often classical; the magnetization of an iron-based magnet being one well-known example. More recently, however, attention has been focused on states of matter which are intrinsically quantum mechanical even at the macroscopic scale, such as "quantum Hall states" as well as "quantum spin liquids" which are actively being sought for in magnetic materials. A key feature of these novel phases is a long range entanglement that is a unique feature intrinsic to quantum mechanical behavior. In this project, the PI and his group will seek to deepen our understanding of such states of matter in order to determine promising arenas for their realization and to propose experimental tests that would signal their presence. It is hoped that these advances in our understanding will eventually lead to a better control over these novel states.
This award also supports the education of a graduate student and a postdoctoral research associate at the frontiers of modern theoretical condensed matter physics. The PI will develop a new graduate-level course that cuts across traditional disciplines and integrates the methods and results from the research above. The results will also be disseminated via public lectures and non-technical summaries posted on a public website. From a technological perspective, the novel properties of the quantum states of matter to be investigated in this project can potentially lead to discovery of new materials with useful functionalities and future applications.
