Speaker
Eddy Ardonne
(Nordita)
Description
We are all familiar with the fact that when liquid water is
cooled down, it turns into ice at some point. We say that
water and ice are two different phases of matter. In this
lecture, we will explore phases of matter that are called
“topological.” By using some simple examples, we will
explain the nature of topological phases of matter, and
explain why they are called topological. The first
topological phase was discovered in 1980, in a certain
semi-conductor system at very low temperature, and in
a high magnetic field. It was discovered rather recently,
in 2007, that topological phases can also exist without
magnetic field. We will discuss these so-called
topological insulators and how they were
discovered.One of the fascinating properties of
topological phases is that the particles living inside such
phases can be smaller, in a sense, than the particles
that make up the phase in the first place! This
“fractionalization” phenomenon has led to an intense
search for topological matter, because it might be
possible to utilize them as building blocks for quantum
computers. We will briefly discuss this potential
application.
