Applied Physics/Physics Colloquium: Ady Stern- "News From The Fractional Arena"

In this talk, several recent developments in the study of fractionalized states of matter will be reviewed. The focus will primarily be on the condensed matter physics perspective, presenting a theoretical approach to the Fractional Chern Insulator (the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect without a magnetic field), its unique properties, and its phase transitions to neighboring phases. The talk will conclude with a few comments from the quantum information perspective, discussing features of the entanglement hidden in the ground state of a fractionalized phase.

Ady Stern is a professor of physics in the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. A theoretical physicist, he is mostly interested in the way that quantum mechanics interplays with electronics. More specifically, he is interested in topological states of matter and the way they may be used to advance quantum information science, all the way to quantum computation. Stern sees physics as the field where you do your best to formulate the rules that govern the system you study, and then do your very best to break these rules. His hobby is popularization of science.