Physics Graduate Student Seminar with Joseph Roseph Cruise on The quantum hall effect: anyons for anyone

The quantum hall effect (QHE), characterized by a sequence of perfectly flat Hall conductance's in 2D metals at high magnetic fields and low temperatures, was the historical gateway which marked the point of departure for condensed matter physics into the world of topology. Although a comprehensive understanding of the QHE requires a daunting amount of mathematical machinery, particularly to explain the fractionalized version, there lies beneath a beautiful, deeply physical story of gauge invariant quantum systems that is accessible to the everyman quantum mechanic. In this talk, I will review the condensed matter background needed to pose the problem of the QHE, and then give an overview to the solution in the case of integer filling fraction (I'll explain what that means too). To finish, I'll tell you about my current research project, which amounts to putting a special class of fractional quantum hall states (with so called non-abelian anyonic excitations) called Jain parton states on a lattice, with the hope of connecting to experiment.