Events Archive

Final Public Oral Examination - Yanyu Jia
Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 1:30 pm2:30 pm

The final public oral examination of Yanyu Jia will take place Thursday, November 21st at 1:30pm in Jadwin Hall, Chair's Conference Room, 202.

 

Thesis Title: "Synthesis and Strongly Correlated Physics of Two-Dimensional Quantum Materials".

 

The examining committee will consist of Professors  Sanfeng Wu,…

Speaker
Faculty, Staff, Grads, Postdocs, Undergrads
FPO | Xinwei Yu | "The computational tools for whole-brain imaging and the neural dynamics of behaviors in C. elegans" | Chair's Conference Room, 202 @ 2pm
Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 2:00 pm2:00 pm

Abstract: Advances in optical neural imaging provide an opportunity to record panneuronal neural activity and behavior simultaneously. With a compact nervous system, the transparent nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a good candidate for whole-brain imaging and investigating the neural representation of behaviors. The analysis…

Speaker
FPO- Brian Trundy, "“Real and p-adic Physics”
Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:00 pm3:00 pm

Abstract: This thesis examines the consequences of non-Archimedean geometry in holography and many-body physics. In this framework real space is replaced by a non-Archimedean field which is almost always a padic field or an algebraic extension of a p-adic field. The corresponding bulk geometry is replaced by a discrete tree…

Speaker
FPO- Samuel Saskin, "Building Quantum Systems with Ytterbium Rydberg Arrays"
Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 1:00 pm1:00 pm

Abstract: Neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays have emerged as a promising platform for quantum simulation and quantum computation. The dynamic reconfigurability of optical tweezer traps enables a high degree of single atom control and the ability to generate large-scale defect-free atom arrays in many geometries…

FPO - Preethi Pallegar - "Symmetries and Large N Limits of Majorana Fermion Models"
Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 3:00 pm3:00 pm

In this thesis, we study generalizations of well-known Majorana fermion models, including the SYK model and the Klebanov-Tarnopolsky tensor model. The models are compared at finite and large N, where we find that the models simplify considerably and can even become solvable.

In chapter 2, we study quantum mechanical models in which…

FPO - Seong Woo Oh - "Cryogen-Free Scanning Probe Microscopy in Silicon Device Physics at milli-Kelvin temperatures"
Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 10:00 am10:00 am

Spin qubits housed in silicon quantum dots are rapidly emerging as a viable quantum computing platform. In recent years, there have been single- and two-qubit gate demonstrations, which showed high fidelities to the extent that implementing quantum error correction codes appears to be within reach. With the already existing industrial…

FPO - Ho Tat Lam - "On Symmetries, Anomalies and Their Generalizations"
Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 2:00 pm2:00 pm

This dissertation explores various generalizations of global symmetries and ’t Hooft anomalies. Chapter two is based on work with Po-Shen Hsin and Nathan Seiberg [1]. It is dedicated to the study of one-form global symmetries in three and four dimensions. We investigate their physical implications, classify their ’t Hooft anomalies and analyze…

FPO - Sarah Marie Bruno - "Focal Plane Development for Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background with the Simons Observatory"
Thu, Aug 19, 2021, 1:00 pm1:00 pm

A promising avenue for studying the origin and evolution of the universe is to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the thermal radiation remaining from the Big Bang after billions of years of expansion. Today, this remnant takes the form of an extraordinarily uniform thermal blackbody of ~2.7 K in temperature. Increasingly precise…

FPO - Fedor Popov - "New Developments in Vector, Matrix and Tensor Quantum Field Theories"
Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:00 am11:00 am
This thesis is devoted to studies of quantum field theories with dynamical fields in the vector, matrix or tensor representations of O(N) symmetry groups. These models provide interesting classes of exactly solvable models that can be examined in detail and give insights into the properties of other, more complicated quantum field theories. …
FPO - Javier Roulet - "The Binary Black Holes of LIGO and Virgo"
Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 2:00 pm2:00 pm

Over the last six years, the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors have revolutionized gravitational wave astronomy by discovering the first compact binary mergers. There is much to learn about how these systems form in nature, and these discoveries have allowed to start characterizing the astrophysical population of binary black holes…

FPO - Elmer Guardado-Sanchez - "Exploring many-body quantum dynamics with Rydberg-dressed fermions and tilted Hubbard systems"
Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 1:00 pm1:00 pm

Ultracold atomic gases in optical lattices are an ideal platform for studying quantum many-body physics. The long timescales and isolated nature of these systems makes them particularly suited for exploring the dynamics of nearly closed quantum systems and their relaxation towards thermal equilibrium. In this thesis, we demonstrate the…

FPO - Ziming Ji - "Non-Archimedean and Non-local Physics”
Thu, Jul 8, 2021, 10:00 am10:00 am

Physics defined on real manifolds and equipped with locality has achieved many successes theoretically as well as in describing our universe. Nevertheless, from a mathematical point of view, it is not as privileged. This thesis explores the possibility of non-Archimedean and non-local physics by studying a range of…

FPO - Benjamin Weiner - "The Physics of Spatial Differentiation in Living Systems"
Wed, May 26, 2021, 4:00 pm4:00 pm

Living systems exhibit spatial differentiation at every scale, from the functional compartments within cells to the biogeography of multi-species communities. In this dissertation, we investigate the emergence and consequences of spatial differentiation in two contexts: biomolecular condensates in eukaryotic cells (Chapter 1) and resource…

FPO - Average Phan - "Swarm Intelligence in Natural and Synthetic Lives"
Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:00 am10:00 am

Real world phenomenon are inherently nonlinear and complex in a way that usually cannot be understood from first principle. Yet intelligence behaviors appear in biological systems, which are shaped by billions years of evolution, to solve natural challenges. Here, we show a form of collective intelligence at microbial level, emerged in a swarm…

FPO - Damon Binder - On N=6 Superconformal Field Theories
Fri, May 14, 2021, 10:00 am10:00 am

In this thesis we study N = 6 superconformal field theories (SCFTs) in three dimensions. Such theories are highly constrained by supersymmetry, allowing many quantities to be computed exactly. Yet though constrained, N = 6 SCFTs still exhibit a rich array of behaviors, and in various regimes can be dual holographically to M-theory on AdS4 ×S7,…

FPO - Junyi Zhang - "Study of Phases of Matter: Dipolar Dimer Liquid and Topological Metamaterials with Odd Elasticity"
Wed, May 12, 2021, 10:00 am10:00 am

Phases of matter are splendid, and get more complicated from physical systems to biochemical systems. Simple physics principles are proposed to categorise various phases of matter. The phys- ical principles are often exemplified by simple idealised models. When they are applied to more complicated biochemical systems, some generalisations may…

FPO - Xinran Li - The energy resolution and the energy deposition processes in disordered targets for rare-event searches
Tue, May 4, 2021, 9:00 am9:00 am

Underground rare-event search is a substantial branch in particle physics, in which particle dark matter (DM) direct detection and neutrinoless double β decay (0νββ) are two major topics. The elusive nature of the signals puts stringent requirements on the detector contamination level. Some particular interactions also require specific…

FPO - Yantao Wu - "Variational Monte Carlo Renormalization Group”
Mon, May 3, 2021, 2:00 pm2:00 pm
The renormalization group is an important method to understand the critical behaviors of a statistical system. In this thesis, we develop a stochastic method to perform the renormalization group calculations non-perturbatively with Monte Carlo simulations. The method is variational in nature, and involves minimizing a convex functional of the…
FPO - Felix Borjans - "Long-Range Coupling of Electron Spins"
Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:30 am9:30 am

Long-Range Coupling of Electron Spins In the quest towards harnessing quantum systems to study quantum physical phenomena and eventually build a universal quantum computer, multiple promising platforms have emerged. Vast progress has been made on the circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) platform, where superconducting quantum bits (qubits)…

FPO - Trithep Devakul - "Subdimensional Topological Quantum Phases of Matter"
Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 2:00 pm2:00 pm

This Dissertation concerns phases of matter with various ``subdimensional'' properties. We start with topologically ordered phases with subdimensional properties. This includes a discussion of fracton topologically ordered phases, resonating valence plaquette phases, and floating topological phases. We then move on to discuss systems with…