CMT Journal Club

Timetable 2019

Time, Place: Mondays 11-12 in the Theory Lounge.

2019/09/16 – Neil Robinson – Planning and intro to RIXS ([Ref 1])
2019/09/23 – Vladimir Gritsev – Homotopy and defects
2019/09/30 – Alvise Bastianello – the Kane-Fisher Problem
2019/10/07 – Wouter Buijsman – Random Unitary Circuits
2019/10/14 – Bart van Voorden – Quantum Supremacy
2019/10/21 – Axel Cortes Cubero – Resurgent transseries in quantum physics
2019/10/28 – Schelto Crone – Neural Networks in many-body quantum physics
2019/11/04 – Jasper van Wezel
2019/11/11 – Bart de Klerk
2019/11/18 – Daniel Chernowitz
2019/11/25 – Koen Groenland
2019/12/02 – Jans Henke
2019/12/09 – Jiri Minar
2019/12/16 – Patrick Vlaar

Suggested topics

The recent topics, check the Journal Club for Condensed Matter Physics, with useful commentaries on recent impactful works. The Editor’s Suggestion List from Physical Review B might also serve as a source of inspiration.

Some potential “classical topics”, which are often regarded as common knowledge and/or regularly crop up in seminars include:

  1. Luttinger’s Theorem ([Ref 1] [Ref 2])
  2. RG for Fermi liquids ([Ref 1])
  3. Homotopy and defects ([Ref 1])
  4. Random singlet phases ([Ref 1] [Ref 2])
  5. The x-ray edge problem/orthogonality catastrophe ([Ref 1])
  6. The Coulomb gap ([Ref 1])
  7. Rokshar-Kivelson quantum dimer models ([Ref 1])
  8. Weak localisation and conductance fluctuations ([Ref 1] [Ref 2])
  9. Lieb-Robinson bounds ([Ref 1] [Ref 2])
  10. Coulomb gas methods (e.g., Ch. 9 of the “Big Yellow Book”)
  11. Anderson Localisation ([Ref 1])
  12. Coulomb phase in frustrated systems ([Ref 1])
  13. Large deviations ([Ref 1] [Ref 2])
  14. Dimer packing ([Ref 1] [Ref 2] [Ref 3])
  15. Griffith’s phases ([Ref 1])
  16. Replica symmetry and it’s breaking ([Ref 1])
  17. Lifshitz tails: bound states in random potentials ([Ref 1])
  18. Anderson-Higgs mechanism in superconductors ([Ref 1])
  19. Lee-Yang and Fisher zeroes ([Ref 1])
  20. Chalker-Coddington Model for integer QHE ([Ref 1])

If you have other suggestions, please let me know!

Recently covered topics (since 2018)

  1. Luttinger Liquids (intro of Giamarchi’s book)
  2. Goldstone modes and Mermin-Wagner theorem
  3. AKLT model [Ref 1]
  4. Lieb-Mattis Theorem [Ref 1]
  5. Introduction to holography/Maldacena’s conjecture
  6. Lieb-Schultz Mattis Theorem [Ref 1]
  7. Large-S mapping of spin chain to NLSM [Ref 1]
  8. Random matrix theory for quantum transport [Ref 1]
  9. 2D Ising Model (Onsager’s Solution, etc) [Ref 1]
  10. The Haldane Conjecture [Ref 1] [Ref 2] [Ref 3]
  11. Anyons
  12. CDWs and the Kohn Anomaly
  13. Spin liquids
  14. Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene
  15. Metal/Superconductor Junctions
  16. Time crystals
  17. Quantum Many-Body Scars
  18. ARPES and the cuprate strange metal
  19. The Boubenko model
  20. TKNN (quantised Hall conductance) [Ref 1] [Ref 2] [Ref 3]
  21. The Kondo problem and poor man’s scaling [Ref 1] [Ref 2] [Ref 3]
  22. Exciton condensation and the exciton insulator [Ref 1] [Ref 2]
  23. Pseudo-integrability
  24. BKT transition [Ref 1] [Ref 2]
  25. Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering  (RIXS) [Ref 1]