Physical Society Colloquium

Nobel prize topology

Tami Pereg-Barnea

Department of Physics
McGill University

This year's Nobel prize was given to Kosterlitz, Thouless and Haldane for their pioneering contributions to the field of topological condensed matter. In this talk I will survey some of their early work and relate it to recent advances in the field. I will explain in simple terms how topology is manifested in wavefunctions of quasiparticles in solids and note some of the interesting physical consequences.