PI-UIUC 2013

Electrons moving in a periodic electric potential form Bloch energy bands where the mass of electrons are effectively changed. In a strong magnetic field, the cyclotron orbits of free electrons are quantized and Landau levels forms with a massive degeneracy within. In 1976, Hofstadter showed that…

One of the open problems in strong correlation physics is whether or not Luttinger's theorem works for doped Mott insulators, particularly in the pseudo gap regime where the pole-like excitations form only a Fermi arc. I will begin this talk by using this theorem to count particles and show that it…

At a quantum critical point (QCP) in two or more spatial dimensions, leading-order contributions to the scaling of entanglement entropy typically follow the "area" law, while sub-leading behavior contains universal physics. Different universal functions can be access through entangling subregions of…

Certain varieties of transition metal oxides possess both significant interactions and strong spin-orbit coupling. In this talk I will describe materials-motivated models that predict topological phases in heterostructured and bulk transition metal oxides. We find Z2 topological insulators, Chern…

We employ holographic techniques to study quantum quenches at finite temperature, where the quenches involve varying the coupling of the boundary theory to a relevant operator with an arbitrary conformal dimension. The evolution of the system is studied by evaluating the expectation value of the…

When proximity coupled to s-wave superconductors, quantum wires can support effective p-wave superconductivity under appropriate circumstances. The p-wave state has Majorana states at the wire ends which can store quantum information. I will discuss some properties of Majorana states formed in oxide…

I will begin reviewing the Callan-Harvey mechanism of anomaly inflow with particular focus on topological edge states and show how the inflow picture naturally converts the non-covariant "consistent" gauge anomaly of Bardeen and Zumino to the more physical "covariant" anomaly. I will then discuss…

Twist defects are point-like objects that support robust non-local storage of quantum information and non-abelian unitary operations. Unlike quantum deconfined anyonic excitations, they rely on symmetry rather than a non-abelian topological order. Zero energy Majorana bound states can arise at…