Description:

Title: Quantum Fluids: Dirty and Unconventional

Speaker: Bill Halperin, Northwestern University

Abstract: Fluids near the absolute zero of temperature are beautiful manifestations of quantum mechanics exhibiting unique behavior on a macroscopic scale.  In my laboratory downstairs the light isotope helium-three is approximately a million times colder than a winter day in Chicago.  Under such extreme conditions it is condensed into a quantum fluid with multiple superfluid phases, each with a characteristic physical symmetry.  It is remarkable that these states of helium-three are the purest material known.  Perversely we have used high porosity silica aerogel to introduce impurities into the pristine superfluid.  But by engineering the properties of the aerogel we have discovered how to create new ‘dirty’ quantum superfluid states with unconventional symmetry.

Host: Frank Petriello

Speaker Schedule

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, colloquium