Joint HEP/CPM Seminar

Topological Phases in One Dimension

Lukasz Fidkowski

Station-Q
Microsoft

Conventional phases of matter are typically associated with some kind of local order: the formation of a regular lattice in a crystal, the alignment of magnetic spins in a ferromagnet, and even the condensation of a superfluid order parameter. However, the discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect has demonstrated a more exotic possibility: a locally featureless phase which nevertheless possesses a subtle hidden order having to do with the global topology of the system. In this seminar I will discuss the general interacting classification of such topological phases in one dimension, and applications to quantum computing via protected “Majorana” modes.