Strongly correlated quantum materials

当今工业的大部分依赖于先进材料，这些材料从发现到商业产品的开发需要数十年的时间。即使是美国的私人基金会，如摩尔基金会和西蒙斯基金会，也承认并支持基础研究，因为基础研究将提供丰富的实用信息，企业家和创新者将能够利用这些信息开发新产品和新工艺。这种类型的基础研究对加拿大和美国以及世界都很重要。将参与基础知识发展的学生将特别熟练地认识到这些知识带来的机会，并了解应用基础研究所需工具的优势和局限性。 我们将通过专注于“强相关量子材料”来为这一努力做出贡献，即具有显著量子行为和集体效应的材料，这些材料导致了一系列从基本观点来看有趣的性质，同时也与技术相关。 这个为期五年的研究计划有两大类目标。第一个方向使用目前可用的最强大的方法，其中一些是我的团队开发的，以预测强相互作用量子材料的性质。具体的例子包括强关联超导。超导体无电阻地传输电，并在宏观尺度上表现出量子效应。室温下的超导性将带来技术革命。强关联超导性将理论方法推向了最困难的领域，即在金属-绝缘体转变附近，电子的局域和波动图像同样重要。超导性在这种金属-绝缘体转变附近是最强的，无论它是通过添加/去除传导电子引起的，如在基于铜-氧平面（铜酸盐）的陶瓷中，还是通过压力引起的，如在层状有机化合物中。通过保持这种一般的观点，在铜酸盐和层状有机物被认为是在同一框架内，我们可以坚定地建立哪些方法给我们一个强相关的超导性的预测理论。 第二个方向开发新方法，利用冷原子等量子模拟器作为基准，并利用量子信息等其他领域的见解来预测和提出新量的测量。事实上，尽管使用量子力学最基本概念的传统理论方法足以获得构成当前电子技术的材料的基本知识，但它们不足以用于强相关量子材料。我们正在解决现代物理学的一个重大挑战：开发必要的工具来处理材料的微妙量子力学方面，以做出有用的预测。

Much of today's industry relies on advanced materials whose development from discovery to commercial product takes decades. Even private foundations in the United States, such as the Moore foundation and the Simons foundation, recognize and support fundamental research that will provide a wealth of practical information that entrepreneurs and innovators will be able to use to develop new products and processes. This type of fundamental research is as important for Canada as it is for the United States and the world. The students that will participate in the development of fundamental knowledge will be especially skilled to recognize the opportunities brought about by this knowledge and to understand the advantages and limitations of the tools necessary to apply fundamental research. We will contribute to this effort by focusing on "Strongly Correlated Quantum Materials", namely materials with pronounced quantum behavior and collective effects that lead to a host of properties that are intriguing from a fundamental point of view, while also technologically relevant. This five-year research program has two broad classes of objectives. The first direction uses the most powerful methods currently available, some of which my group has developed, to predict properties of strongly interacting quantum materials. Specific examples include strongly-correlated superconductivity. Superconductors transport electricity without resistance and manifest quantum effects at macroscopic scales. Superconductivity at room temperature would revolutionize technology. Strongly-correlated superconductivity pushes theoretical methods in the most difficult regime, namely in the vicinity of a metal-insulator transition, where the localized and wave picture of electrons are equally important. Superconductivity is strongest near this metal-insulator transition, whether it is induced by adding/removing conduction electrons, as in ceramics based on copper-oxygen planes (cuprates), or by pressure, as in layered organic compounds. By keeping this general point of view, where cuprates and layered organics are considered within the same framework, we can firmly establish which methods give us a predictive theory of strongly correlated superconductivity. The second direction develops new methods, taking advantage of quantum simulators such as cold atoms for benchmarks, and taking advantage of insights from other fields, such as quantum information, to predict and propose measurements of new quantities. Indeed, although traditional theoretical methods using the most elementary notions of quantum mechanics were sufficient to obtain the basic knowledge that gave us the materials that make up current electronic technology, they are inadequate for strongly correlated quantum materials. We are addressing a grand challenge of modern physics: developing the tools necessary to handle subtle quantum mechanical aspects of materials to make useful predictions.