# Condensed Matter

This series consists of talks in the area of Condensed Matter.

## Seminar Series Events/Videos

Currently there are no upcoming talks in this series.

## Theory and Experimental Platform for Bosonic Symmetry Protected Topological Phases

Tuesday Dec 20, 2016
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Bosonic symmetric protected topological (BSPT) phases are bosonic anagolue of electron topological insulators and superconductors. Despite the theoretical progresses of classifying these states, little attention has been paid to experimental realization of BSPT states in dimensions higher than 1. We propose bilayer graphene system in a out-of-plane magnetic field with Coulomb interaction is a natural platform for BSPT states with $U(1)\times U(1)$ symmetry.

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## Matrix product state evolutions of quantum fields in curved space

Thursday Dec 15, 2016
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The matrix product state (MPS) ansatz makes possible computationally-efficient representations of weakly entangled many-body quantum systems with gapped Hamiltonians near their ground states, notably including massive, relativistic quantum fields on the lattice. No Wick rotation is required to apply the time evolution operator, enabling study of time-dependent Hamiltonians. Using free massive scalar field theory on the 1+1 Robertson-Walker metric as a toy example, I present early efforts to exploit this fact to model quantum fields in curved spacetime.

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## Entanglement negativity in topologically ordered phases

Tuesday Dec 13, 2016
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Unlike entanglement entropy and mutual information which may mix both classical and quantum correlations, entanglement negativity received extensive interest recently, for its merit of measuring the pure quantum entanglement in the system. In this talk, I will introduce the entanglement negativity in 2+1 dimensional topologically ordered phases. For a bipartitioned or tripartitioned spatial manifold, we show how the universal part of entanglement negativity depends on the presence of quasiparticles and the choice of ground states.

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## Majorana zero modes in condensed matter: From topological quantum computing milestones to Majorana-dimer models

Friday Dec 09, 2016
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Condensed matter realizations of Majorana zero modes constitute potential building blocks of a topological quantum computer and thus have recently been the subject of intense theoretical and experimental investigation. In the first part of this talk, I will introduce a new scheme for preparation, manipulation, and readout of these zero modes in semiconducting wires coated with mesoscopic superconducting islands.

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## Spatial symmetry breaking in FQH states and beyond, when geometry meets topology

Wednesday Nov 30, 2016
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In this talk, I would introduce spontaneous nematicity in the background of fractional quantum Hall fluids where symmetry breaking phenomenon intertwined with topological phase of matter. The resulting nematic FQH state is characterized by an order parameter that represents these quadrupolar fluctuations, which play the role of fluctuations of the local geometry of the quantum fluid.

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## Quantum Critical Dynamics in Two Quantum Magnets

Friday Nov 25, 2016
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Quantum phase transitions arise at zero temperature when ground state energy meets non-analyticity upon tuning a non-thermal parameter.

Physical properties around quantum critical points (QCPs) are of extensive current interests because the fierce competition between critical quantum and thermal fluctuations near the QCPs can strongly affect dynamics and thermodynamics, leading to unconventional physics.

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## Thermalization in Quantum Systems - and its breakdown

Wednesday Nov 23, 2016
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How does thermalization in quantum systems work? Naively, the unitary time evolution prevents thermalization, but one can easily show that in general quantum systems thermalize when brought into contact with a thermal bath. In noninteracting systems, the approach to the thermal value can be either ballistic or diffusive depending on particle statistics and bath temperature.

However, many systems cannot be thermalized when placed in a bath: glasses.

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## Transport in Chern-Simons-Matter Theories

Monday Nov 21, 2016
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The frequency-dependent longitudinal and Hall conductivities — σ_xx and σ_xy — are dimensionless functions of ω/T in 2+1 dimensional CFTs at nonzero temperature. These functions characterize the spectrum of charged excitations of the theory and are basic experimental observables. We compute these conductivities for large N Chern-Simons theory with fermion matter. The computation is exact in the ’t Hooft coupling λ at N = ∞.

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## Objective classical branch structure in a many-body wavefunction from spatial redundancy

Tuesday Nov 15, 2016
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When the wavefunction of a macroscopic system unitarily evolves from a low-entropy initial state, there is good circumstantial evidence it develops "branches", i.e., a decomposition into orthogonal components that can't be distinguished from the corresponding incoherent mixture by feasible observations, with each component a simultaneous eigenstate of preferred macroscopic observables. Is this decomposition unique? Can the number of branches decrease in time?

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## Non-perturbative emergence of non-Fermi liquid behaviour in d=2 quantum critical metals

Friday Nov 04, 2016
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We consider d=2 fermions at finite density coupled to a critical boson. In the quenched or Bloch-Nordsieck approximation, where one takes the limit of fermion flavors N_f→0, the fermion spectral function can be determined {exactly}. We show that one can obtain this non-perturbative answer thanks to a specific identity of fermionic two-point functions in the planar local patch approximation. The resulting spectrum is that of a non-Fermi liquid: quasiparticles are not part of the exact fermionic excitation spectrum of the theory.

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## RECENT PUBLIC LECTURE

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