Choose timezone
Your profile timezone:
Theory Colloquia
Experimental Evidence for Duality in Quantum Hall Systems
by
→
Europe/Zurich
TH Theory Conference Room (CERN)
TH Theory Conference Room
CERN
Description
Quantum Hall systems are characterized by a spectacular set of
observations (universal low-temperature conductivity,
critical behaviour and semi-circle laws for transitions
between Quantum Hall states) that are more robust than
would be expected from the detailed theory of underlying
electron dynamics. After providing an introductory summary
of these observations, this talk argues that they follow
from the assumption that the important charge carriers at
the low energies relevant to conductivity measurements are
weakly interacting particles or vortices. This implies a
large emergent duality symmetry (a level two subgroup of
SL(2,Z)), whose presence underlies the robustness of the
observations in question. Recent string-inspired developments
for 2+1 dimensional conformal field theories appear to
provide support for this picture.
Organised by
Christophe Grojean
