Non-technical Abstract: Innovation in materials science is driven by the introduction of new paradigms for the organization of matter. This research project involves the study of a new kind of liquid formed when millions of magnets - each a fraction of a human hair in size - are made to spin. This table-top model system is a window into a new paradigm sitting at the interface of hard and soft condensed matter, in which the material properties emerge from the effect of drive on microscopic constituents of a meta-fluid. Such fluids break new symmetries (time-reversal) enabling them to have new properties which are explored in this project.
While it is known that topological physics can be applied to solids built out of rotating components, the physics of time-reversal and parity symmetry breaking remains almost untapped in fluids. The research team is using a system of spinning magnets to create a cohesive chiral fluid whose hydrodynamic description breaks parity and time-reversal symmetries. The deceiving conceptual simplicity of activating a fluid by spinning its building blocks hides the deep consequences this has on its properties. For example, the breaking of time-reversal symmetry is speculated to give rise to new transport coefficients, such as Hall or 'Odd' viscosity, that are absent from canonical treatments of classical fluids but present in theoretical treatments of quantum hall electronic systems and plasmas. The broad applicability of hydrodynamic descriptions means that the discoveries in this project transcend the specific experiments in which they are made. The goal is to elucidate the physics of compressible and incompressible chiral flows, yielding fundamental insights on one hand and a new tool to design out-of-equilibrium meta-fluids on the other. Beyond scientific advances, this project enables training of students and undergraduates, with an emphasis on under-represented minorities in cutting-edge research.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
