CAREER: Disorder and Symmetries in Condensed Matter Systems

非技术说明：该职业奖支持凝聚态物理领域的理论研究和教育。凝聚态物理学的一个令人兴奋的发展是认识到随机分散的杂质，总是存在于材料中，可以导致系统的可复制行为，有时产生新的物理现象，如果没有无序就不会存在。无序理论的发展导致了介观物理学的成功，它也有助于我们对量子霍尔效应、二阶相变和其他现象的理解。在研究部分，PI将专注于普遍的无序理论的各个方面。特别是，PI旨在阐明在无序环境中低能玻色子激发的普遍方面。该领域的一些最重要的问题包括“玻色子峰值”，无序固体和玻璃中的声子过剩，以及随机磁体中磁振子的热输运。PI计划研究随机弹性介质中的声子作为无序固体的模型，并研究它们在典型无序相关长度的波长上的态密度峰值。PI计划研究纳米级超导晶粒的无序性。这里的问题是扩散无序系统如何对少量强散射体的引入作出反应。PI将使用保形场论的精确方法研究无序存在下的二阶相变。在实验上看来，在冷原子气体中创造多体凝聚态是可能的。与典型的凝聚态系统不同，原子之间的相互作用可以在外部进行调整，这允许定制制造具有各种有趣性质的原子系统。在这些原子系统中创造量子类霍尔拓扑状态是可能的。这种状态被认为是量子计算机的可能组成部分。原子凝聚体中的拓扑态有望比量子霍尔态更健壮，使其更适合实际应用。PI将研究在费米子原子凝聚物中创造可调非阿贝尔量子类霍尔态的不同方法。在教育方面，PI将设计并教授一套新的课程，旨在将多体物理带给所有感兴趣的研究生和聪明的本科物理专业学生。其目的是以逻辑一致的方式教授现代理论物理学，避免将其表示为不同的不相关现象的集合。特别是，该项目旨在为选修“固态物理导论”课程的本科生设计一套项目，以帮助学生主动学习材料，而不是被动学习。PI还计划通过战略合作与少数民族学生合作，并参加外联活动。非技术说明：该职业奖支持凝聚态物理领域的理论研究和教育。凝聚态物理学的一个令人兴奋的发展是认识到随机分散的杂质，总是存在于材料中，可以导致系统的可复制行为，有时产生新的物理现象，如果没有无序就不会存在。无序理论的发展导致了介观物理学的成功，也有助于我们对量子霍尔效应、二阶相变和其他现象的理解。在研究部分，PI侧重于普遍的无序理论方面，即独立于真实材料中无序的微观细节，并且可能在许多不同的物理系统中发现。PI旨在研究各种主题，从无序材料的晶格振动和纳米级超导晶粒的无序到无序系统的相变理论。在实验上，似乎有可能在被激光捕获的极冷原子系统中创造出类似于各种有趣材料中的电子状态的状态。原子之间的相互作用比电子之间的相互作用更容易调整，这为定制制造具有各种有趣性质的原子系统提供了可能性。有可能在这些原子系统中创建状态，这些状态已被提议作为量子计算机的可能构建块。PI将研究创造冷原子态的不同方法，这些方法具有基本的科学兴趣，并可能对新兴的量子信息科学领域产生影响。在教育方面，PI将设计并教授一套新的课程，旨在将多体物理带给所有感兴趣的研究生和聪明的本科物理专业学生。其目的是以逻辑一致的方式教授现代理论物理学，避免将其表示为不同的不相关现象的集合。特别是，该项目旨在为选修“固态物理导论”课程的本科生设计一套项目，以帮助学生主动学习材料，而不是被动学习。PI还计划通过战略合作与少数民族学生合作，并参加外联活动。

NON-TECHNICAL EXPLANATION:This CAREER award supports theoretical research and education in the field of condensed matter physics. One exciting development in condensed matter physics is the realization that randomly scattered impurities, always present in materials, can result in systematic reproducible behavior, sometimes producing new physical phenomena which would not have existed without disorder. Developments in the theory of disorder led to successes in mesoscopic physics, and it also contributed to our understanding of the quantum Hall effect, second order phase transitions, and other phenomena.In the research component, the PI will focus on the aspects of the theory of disorder that are universal. In particular, the PI aims to elucidate the universal aspects of low-energy bosonic excitations in a disordered environment. Some of the most important problems in this field include the "boson peak", the excess of phonons in disordered solids and glasses, and the heat transport of magnons in random magnets. The PI plans to study phonons in random elastic media as a model of disordered solids and investigate the peak in their density of states at wavelength of the order of typical disorder correlation length. The PI plans to study disorder in nanoscale superconducting grains. At issue here is how a diffusive disordered system responds to the introduction of a small number of strong scatterers. The PI will study the second order phase transition in the presence of disorder using the exact methods of conformal field theory. It appears to be experimentally possible to create many-body condensed matter states in cold atomic gases. Unlike those in typical condensed matter systems, the interactions between the atoms can be tuned externally, and this allows to custom manufacture atomic systems with various interesting properties. It may be possible to create quantum Hall-like topological states in these atomic systems. Such states have been proposed as possible building blocks of quantum computers. The topological states in atomic condensates are expected to be far more robust than their quantum Hall counterparts, making them more suitable for practical applications. The PI will investigate different ways of creating a tunable non-Abelian quantum Hall-like state in the fermionic atomic condensates. In the education component, the PI will devise and teach a new set of courses designed to bring many-body physics to all interested graduate students and bright undergraduate physics majors. The aim is to teach modern theoretical physics in a logically consistent way, avoiding representing it as just a collection of different unrelated phenomena. In particular, the PI aims to devise a set of projects for undergraduate students taking the class "Introduction to Solid State Physics," to help students to study the material actively, as opposed to passively. The PI also plans to work with minority students through a strategic collaboration and to participate in outreach activities.NON-TECHNICAL EXPLANATION:This CAREER award supports theoretical research and education in the field of condensed matter physics. An exciting development in condensed matter physics is the realization that randomly scattered impurities, always present in materials, can result in systematic reproducible behavior, sometimes producing new physical phenomena which would not have existed without disorder. Developments in the theory of disorder led to successes in mesoscopic physics, and have also contributed to our understanding of the quantum Hall effect, second order phase transitions, and other phenomena.In the research component, the PI focuses on the aspects of the theory of disorder that are universal, that is, independent of the microscopic details of disorder in real materials and are likely to be found in many different physical systems. The PI aims to investigate a variety of topics from lattice vibrations in disordered materials and disorder in nanoscale superconducting grains to the theory of phase transition in disordered systems. It appears to be experimentally possible to create states in systems of very cold atoms trapped by laser light that resemble the states of electrons in various interesting materials. The interactions between the atoms can be more easily tuned than the interactions between electrons opening the possibility to custom manufacture atomic systems with various interesting properties. It may be possible to create states in these atomic systems that have been proposed as possible building blocks of quantum computers. The PI will investigate different ways of creating cold-atom states that are of fundamental scientific interest and may have impact on the emerging field of quantum information science. In the education component, the PI will devise and teach a new set of courses designed to bring many-body physics to all interested graduate students and bright undergraduate physics majors. The aim is to teach modern theoretical physics in a logically consistent way, avoiding representing it as just a collection of different unrelated phenomena. In particular, the PI aims to devise a set of projects for undergraduate students taking the class "Introduction to Solid State Physics," to help students to study the material actively, as opposed to passively. The PI also plans to work with minority students through a strategic collaboration and to participate in outreach activities.