Description:

Title: Strange metals and black holes

Speaker:Subir Sachdev, Harvard University 

Abstract: 

A `strange metal’ is a new state of matter, formed by electrons in many modern
materials. In this state, the electrons quantum entangle with each other across long distances, and conduct electric current collectively (rather than one-by-one, as in an ordinary metal like copper). As they are cooled, most strange metals also become superconductors at relatively high temperatures, in which electric current flows with zero resistance.

Black holes are stars so dense that even light is not able to escape their gravitational attraction. Remarkably, there is a mapping between the quantum theories of these very different physical systems: strange metals and black holes. I will illustrate this equivalence with a very simple model of a strange metal, which can also be viewed as a theory of primitive black hole.

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Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, colloquium