9802468 Huse This award involves research in condensed matter theory. Huse plans to study: critical points with quenched disorder, the Josephson plasmon in layered superconductors, kinetics and phase transitions in superconducting wire arrays, frustrated magnets and hard sphere crystals. The scaling properties of the distributions of quantities at and near the critical points of systems with quenched disorder will be investigated. One focus is to determine whether the very different scaling of the average and median behavior that is seen in some one-dimensional models can occur in two- or three-dimensional systems. We will attempt to develop a scaling theory for such systems, and will investigate what aspects of the distributions can be seen by different sorts of experiments. The frequency and linewidth of the Josephson plasmon in layered superconductors will be studied as a unique probe of interlayer superconducting correlations, which vary strongly with temperature and applied magnetic field. The inhomogeneous broadening of this mode by quenched disorder and quasi-static thermal disorder in both the vortex liquid and glass regimes of the phase diagram will be studied. The conditions under which equilibrium can be achieved in exotic superconducting phases of Kagome lattice superconducting wire arrays will be studied. %%% This award involves research at the cutting edge of condensed matter theory. Huse will focus his study in three areas: (1) phase transitions in disordered materials, (2) charge oscillations in layered superconductors such as the high temperature superconductors, and (3) superconducting phases in novel superconducting networks. Studies in these areas seek to resolve fundamental issues at the forefront of condensed matter physics. ***
