Spin Ice - A Magnetic Analogue of Common Water Ice with Emergent Electrodynamics with Deconfined and Fractionalized Excitations

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Date/Time:Monday, 28 Nov 2016 from 4:10 pm to 5:00 pm
Location:Phys 0003
Contact:Gloria Oberender
Phone:515-294-5441
Channel:College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
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Michel Gingras, University of Waterloo and Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Quantum Materials Program

ABSTRACT

Discovered in 1997, spin ices are frustrated magnetic materials that display a low-temperature state characterized by a nonzero residual magnetic entropy that is intimately related to the proton disorder entropy of common water ice, first rationalized by Linus Pauling in 1935 -- hence the name spin ice. In this talk, I will review the salient aspects of these fascinating systems that have sustained the interests of theorists and experimentalists alike for over fifteen years. In particular, I will emphasize the many layers of "strong emergence" that these systems harbour and comment on their field-theoretic description akin to that of quantum electrodynamics on the lattice with deconfined "matter" excitations and the accompanying gauge boson.