# DPF2015

4-8 August 2015
America/Detroit timezone

## Magnetic Catalysis in Graphene

7 Aug 2015, 14:50
20m
East Partition (Alumni Center)

### East Partition

#### Alumni Center

Field and String Theory

### Speaker

christopher Winterowd (University of Utah)

### Description

One of the most important developments in condensed matter physics in recent years has been the discovery and characterization of graphene. A two-dimensional layer of Carbon arranged in a hexagonal lattice, graphene exhibits many interesting electronic properties, most notably the property that the low energy excitations can be described by the Dirac equation for a massless fermion. These excitations interact strongly via the Coulomb interaction and thus non-perturbative methods can be useful. Using methods borrowed from lattice QCD, we study the graphene effective theory in the presence of an external magnetic field. Graphene, along with other $(2+1)$-dimensional field theories, has been predicted to undergo spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry including the formation of a gap as a result of the external magnetic field. This phenomenon is known as magnetic catalysis. Our study investigates magnetic catalysis using a fully non-perturbative approach.
Oral or Poster Presentation Oral

### Primary authors

Prof. Carleton DeTar (University of Utah) christopher Winterowd (University of Utah)