The quantum Hall effect: from single particle states to non-abelian statistics

by Eddy Ardonne (Nordita)

Friday 26 Sept 2008, 13:15 → 14:00 Europe/Stockholm

122:026

In this talk (which is geared towards the non-specialists), the concept of non-abelian statistics will be explained in a few easy steps. We will start from the single particle states of 2-dimensional electrons in a magnetic field. The many particle Laughlin wave function follows from a simple variational argument. In a certain limit (called the thin-torus), the Laughlin wave function reduces to a particularly simple form. It is in this limit that we will introduce the concept of non-abelian statistics.