Séminaire général : Thierry GIAMARCHI – (Université de Genève) “Vous avez dit bizarre ?” : one-dimensional quantum physics

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Résumé : To describe the materials that surround us and that we use daily, quantum physics has proven to be an essential tool. It has allowed us, through a description largely based on a physics without interaction between particles, to understand many properties of materials. However, this description without interaction has its limitations, and understanding the effects of interactions represents a huge challenge when it comes to real materials. In the case of systems that are only one-dimensional, the interactions between particles even lead to a radically new physics compared to what we are familiar with in three-dimensional systems. What may seem like nothing more than a mathematical game or an academic curiosity is, in fact, extremely important for a large number of systems such as organic superconductors (with key studies done, in particular, at LPS), carbon nanotubes, various quantum spin systems, and cold atoms in optical lattices. The need to understand such systems has now become a central point in the physics of quantum systems, both in terms of the physics itself and in terms of the methods for solving such problems.

In this presentation, I will provide an overview of this very particular physics and its consequences, such as the existence of fractional charge excitations and topological phase transitions. I will also showcase the experimental scenarios that recent advancements in materials science, nanotechnology, and ultracold gas physics have offered and discuss the state of the field and its prospects and challenges for the 21st century.

Biography :

Thierry Giamarchi was a CNRS researcher at LPS and is now a professor at the University of Geneva in the Department of Quantum Matter Physics, of which he was the director. He is also the president of a Swiss association focused on materials with new properties (www.manep.ch).

His research encompasses various aspects of the theory of correlated quantum systems in low dimensions, both in the field of condensed matter and ultracold quantum gases. Additionally, he explores the physics of disordered classical and quantum systems. He enjoys discovering new glassy phases, such as Bose glass or Bragg glass. Thierry Giamarchi is a member of the Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Physical Society.

For more details, you can visit his website: giamarchi.unige.ch.