Topology and Anyons in Few-Body Systems

Date

Jun 19, 2019

Time

3:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Speaker

Nathan Harshman

Affiliation

American University, Washington DC

Language

en

Main Topic

Physik

Other Topics

Physik

Description

Normally, particle exchanges obey statistics given by the symmetric group of particle permutations and indistinguishable particles behave like bosons or fermions. In contrast, anyons have generalized exchange statistics determined by a different group that arises from the topology of few-body configuration space. Specifically, when the few-body configuration space is not simply-connected, then generalized exchange statistics can arise. Fractional exchange statistics given by the braid group are the most famous kind of anyon, but there are others that could be implemented with cold atoms in optical traps and engineered interactions. This talk will describe how the shape of the trap, the defects caused by particle interactions, and indistinguishability can induce non-trivial connectivity in configuration space and lead to different families of anyons with different generalized exchange statistics and physical properties.

Last modified: Jun 24, 2019, 3:17:27 PM