Chiral Magnetic Effect in Condensed Matters
| Date/Time: | Monday, 15 Oct 2018 from 4:10 pm to 5:00 pm |
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| Location: | Phys 0003 |
| Phone: | 515-294-5441 |
| Channel: | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences |
| Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
Abstract: Recent discoveries of new phenomena due to interacting Dirac/Weyl fermions across vastly different energy and length scales have led to a fascinating convergence between condensed matter physics and high-energy nuclear physics. In relativistic quantum field theory, Dirac fermions in 3D space and time exhibit so-called chiral anomaly. A consequence of the chiral anomaly is the chiral magnetic effect - the generation of electric current in a magnetic field induced by the chirality imbalance between the left-handed and the right-handed fermions. The powerful notion of chirality, originally discovered in high-energy and nuclear physics, underpins a wide palette of new and useful phenomena, enabling chiral charges, provided chirality is conserved, to travel without resistance. Weyl fermions can be manipulated by optical means, leading to the proposal of chiral qubit. In this colloquium, I will report the recent discovery of the chiral magnetic effect in condensed matter systems, accentuate the similarities and differences between the chiral magnetic effect and conventional superconductivity. Finally, I will discuss the prospect of harnessing the power of chirality for non-dissipative transport of energy and quantum information.
Bio: Dr. Qiang Li received his Ph. D in physics from Iowa State University. He then joined the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Division at Brookhaven National Lab, where he is now a tenured Physicist and the head of Advanced Energy Materials Group. His research interests range from basic physics and material sciences of quantum electronic materials to their applications. At Brookhaven, he led several US Department of Energy projects on high temperature superconductors for grid scale energy storage, wind power generation, and next generation electrical machine. Recently, he has been leading a basic science research effort on chiral materials and unconventional superconductivity. He is a Fellow of American Physical Society