Recorded Seminars

FTPI Professor Maxim Pospelov delivered this Cosmology Seminar on 11/28/22. The title of his talk is, "Accelerated Light Dark Matter."

Abstract: Light dark matter particles (MeV range) carry too little energy to be seen with current dark matter detectors. Considerable efforts are being spent on lowering the energy thresholds for detection. I will show that these models can be successfully constrained using a double collision scheme. First collision with e.g. solar electrons/cosmic ray particles/accelerator beam can bring the dark matter to detectable energies, with subsequent scattering of accelerated dark matter leaving detectable energy deposition in large neutrino and/or dark matter detectors. This scheme currently provides leading sensitivity to light dark matter in a wide range of masses and cross sections.

FTPI Professor Mikhail "Misha" Shifman delivered this Seminar on 6/17/21. The talk was hosted by the Harvard University Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications. The title of his talk is, "What can supersymmetry do that other field theories cannot."

An interview with FTPI Professor Mikhail "Misha" Shifman, "50 Years in Theoretical Physics."

Hosted by Suzette Lyn

FTPI Professor Mikhail "Misha" Shifman delivered this Special Seminar on 3/1/21. The title of his talk is, “Quantum Physicists Between Two Evils.”

FTPI Professor Keith Olive was interviewed on the podcast, Scientific Sense on Oct. 6th, 2020. Listen to his interview now.

4/30/23: 2022 Anatoly Larkin Senior Award

Professor Patrick A. Lee from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) was awarded the Senior Award for pioneering and wide reaching research in strongly correlated systems, in particular theories of the quantum transport phenomena in the mesoscopic and superconducting systems, and for his standing in the Physics community.

The title of his talk is, "An Overview of Quantum Spin Liquid: Standing on the Shoulder of a Giant Named Anatoly."

Abstract: I shall review the current status of quantum spin liquid, particularly the gapless variety which is described by emergent gauge fields and fermionic particles called spinons. The theory has benefited greatly by the insight of Anatoly Larkin on the role of gauge field fluctuations, leading to the famous Ioffe-Larkin rule. I shall review the status of several promising experimental candidates and describe some proposals to experimentally access the spinons as well as the gauge field.

4/23/23: 2022 Anatoly Larkin Junior Award

Professor Liang Fu from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was awarded the Junior Award for seminal works on 3D topological insulators and odd parity topological superconductors, crystalline topological insulators, Majorana zero modes, and for being an intellectual leader of his generation.

The title of his talk is, “Diodic Quantum Materials.”

Abstract: The p-n junction is the key building block of modern microelectronics that underlies diodes and transistors. In recent years, it has been found that certain quantum materials can have a direction dependent electrical resistance and thus exhibit an intrinsic diode effect without any junction. In this talk, I will first describe diodic superconductors that exhibit zero (nonzero) resistance in the forward (backward) direction. Such superconducting diode effect generally appears when Cooper pairs in the ground state have finite center-of-mass momentum, as in the Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell superconductor. Next, I will describe noncentrosymmetric conductors that exhibit a nonreciprocal Hall effect at zero magnetic field, with the transverse current quadratic in the applied voltage. This intrinsic nonreciprocity is a fundamental material property that originates from the quantum geometry of itinerant electron states in crystals. Potential applications of diodic quantum materials in high-frequency (THz) and low-power electronics will be discussed.