AlbaNova Colloquium

Augmenting Reality: Axions, Anyons, and Entangled Histories

by Prof. Frank Wilczek (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Europe/Stockholm
Description
I will briefly introduce three lines of research which I am presently pursuing. Axions are a new kind of fundamental particle, with remarkable properties. They arise in the deep theory of time reversal symmetry. Axions are a leading candidate to provide the dark matter in the universe. Anyons are a new class of emergent particle. Anyons arise in special entangled states of two-dimensional matter. They evade the traditional division of particles into bosons and fermions. Entangled histories encode what we learn by measuring a new class of observables (temporal observables). They give a precise mathematical embodiment of “many worlds” intuition. In each case, I will discuss how we might bring the ideas from virtual reality into augmented reality.