- About Us
- People
- Undergrad
- Graduate
- Research
- News & Events
-
News by Year
- 2022
- Physics Professors named Canada Research Chairs
- Physics Faculty and Graduate Student Win Teaching Awards
- SFU Physics Professor wins 2021 Buchalter Cosmology Prize
- Dr. Hayden's Research in SFU Scholarly Impact
- Karen Kavanagh selected as a Fellow of the MRS
- Applied Physics undergrad wins AMPP Poster Competition
- Physics BSc Grad Gives Convocation Address
- 2021
- Simmons wins Women of Distinction Award
- Pogosian's Research in SFU Scholarly Impact
- PhD Graduate Awarded Convocation Medal
- Convocation Speaker Aidan Wright
- Nancy Forde Elected BSC President
- Bechhoefer named Royal Society of Canada Fellow
- Jeff Sonier Named American Physical Society Fellow
- SFU undergrads receive quantum grant award
- 2020
- 2019
- 2018
- 2022
- Events by Year
- Events By Category
-
News by Year
- Outreach
- _how-to
- Congratulations to our Class of 2021
- Archive
Colloquium
Spinors, Strings and Superconductors: Challenges of new era in Condensed Matter Physics
Piers Coleman
Center for Materials Theory, Dept of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University
Spinors, Strings and Superconductors: Challenges of new era in Condensed Matter Physics
Apr 01, 2016
Synopsis
Physics thrives on the convection of ideas between the lab, the blackboard and the cosmos, yet each new generation of physicist is surprised as it rediscovers the forgotten fact that discovery cuts across the boundaries of our specialities. Here, I shall argue that recent discoveries in particle, condensed matter and astronomy place us again at extraordinary juncture for a new convection of ideas.
I shall illustrate this outlook from a condensed matter physics-archive perspective, using some modest examples drawn from my work and others. How some elegant equations from string theory and gravity led us to discover a novel phase transition in two dimensional Heisenberg magnets and how a discussion with a particle physicist suggested a new way of understanding heavy electron superconductors.