Ringel, Zohar

Date: Friday, July 15, 2016
Time: 10:00
Place: ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HIT E 41.1
Host: Oded Zilberberg

Classical topological paramagnetism

Zohar Ringel
University of Oxford, UK

Topological phases of matter are one of the hallmarks of quantum condensed matter physics. One of their striking features is a bulk-boundary correspondence wherein the topological nature of the bulk manifests itself on boundaries via exotic massless phases. In this talk I'll introduce a couple of strongly-interacting statistical-mechanical models which, in analogy with topological insulators, could be described as classical topological paramagnets. While featureless in the bulk such models host exotic forms of long-range and quasi-long-range order on their boundaries. Furthermore they can be seen as classical simulators of the imaginary time evolution of certain quantum topological phases of spin systems. This opens a new experimental route as well as an efficient numerical route for studying topological phases of spin systems.