Visible light exposure of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's Very Large Telescope, X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory & math reconstruction of dark matter location. D. Coe & J. Merten/ESO/NASA/ESA/CXC
Theory Seminar

Physics Theory Seminar with Leo Radzihovsky

Leo Radzihovsky (hosted by Zohar Nussinov) from the University of Colorado, Boulder will be presenting a talk on "Immobile topological quantum matter: fractons"

Radzihovsky will discuss the bourgeoning field of "fractons" — a class of models with quasi-particles that display restricted mobility. Focusing on just a corner of this fast-growing subject, he will explain how one class of such theories (symmetric tensor gauge theories) surprisingly emerge from seemingly mundane elasticity of a two-dimensional quantum crystal. The disclination and dislocation crystal defects respectively map onto charges and dipoles of the fracton gauge theory. This fracton-elasticity duality leads to predictions of fractonic phases and quantum phase transitions to their descendants, that are duals of the commensurate crystal, supersolid, smectic, and hexatic liquid crystals. Extensions of this duality to generalized elasticity theories provide a route to discovery of new fractonic models and their potential experimental realizations.

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson fund.