Department Colloquium: Tuesday, May 24, 2022 - Boundary behavior at classical and quantum phase transitions

Event Date: 

Tuesday, May 24, 2022 - 3:45pm

Event Date Details: 

  • Broida 1640 and Zoom

Event Location: 

  • Broida 1640 and Zoom
  • Physics Department Colloquium

Boundary behavior at classical and quantum phase transitions

Max Metlitski, MIT 
 
There has been a lot of recent interest in the boundary behavior of materials. This interest is driven in part by the field of topological states of quantum matter, where exotic protected boundary states are ubiquitous. In this talk, I'll ask: what happens at a boundary of a system, when the bulk goes through a phase transition. While this question was studied in the context of classical statistical mechanics in the 70s and 80s, basic aspects of the boundary phase diagram for the simplest classical phase transitions have been missed until recently. I'll describe progress in this field, as well as some extensions to quantum phase transitions.
 
Max Metlitski, MIT