Martin Klanjšek: Quantum magnets as a laboratory of new quasiparticles: magnetic monopoles and anyons

 

Quantum magnets as a laboratory of new quasiparticles: magnetic monopoles and anyons

 

New particles are usually sought in high-energy particle colliders. In the last decade, however, interesting new quasiparticles are being observed in exotic phases of condensed matter. Many of those have been predicted for decades, but never observed in nature. Quantum magnets as the simplest possible form of condensed matter turn out to be an excellent laboratory of new quasiparticles. A canonical example is spin ice, a particular kind of a quantum magnet, which turns out to be an excellent playground for the physics of magnetic monopoles. I will present another kind of a quantum magnet, termed Kitaev honeycomb magnet, which allowed for the very recent observation of exotic quasiparticles, called anyons. Promoted by the Nobel laureate Franck Wilczek four decades ago, anyons are neither fermions nor bosons, and offer a potential platform for the topological quantum computing.

Pred predavanjem so poslušalci vabljeni na čaj.