I will discuss a wide class of models which realise a bounce in a spatially flat Friedmann universe in standard General Relativity. The key ingredient is a noncanonical, minimally coupled scalar field belonging to the class of theories with Kinetic Gravity Braiding/Galileon-like self-couplings. In these models, the universe smoothly volves from contraction to expansion, suffering neither from ghosts nor gradient instabilities around the turning point. The end-point of he evolution can be a standard radiation-domination era or an nflationary phase. The talk is based on arXiv:1109.1047v2 [hep-th], JCAP11(2011)021.
We provide a brief introduction to quantum spin liquid
and review current status of theoretical and experimental progresses on this
subject. Spin liquid phases that arise in different situations are examined in
the light of both theoretical models and experimental systems.