Condensed Matter Seminar

September 13 2018

G126 noon

 

Qiang Li

Brookhaven National Laboratory

 

Chiral Fermion Transport in Condensed Matters

Abstract

Recent discoveries of new phenomena due to interacting Dirac/Weyl fermions across vastly different energy and length scales have led to a fascinating convergence between condensed matter physics and high energy nuclear physics. The powerful notion of chirality underpins a wide palette of new and useful phenomena. Chiral magnetic effect – the generation of electric current in a magnetic field induced by the chirality imbalance between the left-handed and the right-handed fermions – has been discovered in condensed matter systems, enabling chiral charges to travel without resistance, provided chirality is conserved. Berry curvature of Weyl notes produces large anomalous Hall and Nernst effect. Mixed axial–gravitational anomaly provides a distinct contribution to a chiral imbalance, leading to a positive magneto-thermoelectric conductance for Weyl fermions,. Detection and manipulation of Weyl fermions by optical means has been demonstrated, leading to the proposal of chiral qubit. In this presentation, I will give an overview on experimentally probing chiral fluids in condensed matters, discuss their robustness and the prospect of harnessing the power of chirality for transport of energy and quantum information at room temperature.