January 30, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Tracy Slatyer
MIT
A Galactic Puzzle in Gamma Rays
The region around the Galactic Center contains a well-characterized glow of gamma rays, which has garnered great interest as a possible signal of either dark matter particles colliding and annihilating each other, or a previously undiscovered population of pulsars in the stellar bulge. Analyses of the photon statistics of the glow have been used to argue that the pulsar interpretation is strongly favored - however, I will present recent work arguing that it may be premature to exclude a dark matter origin for the glow on these grounds. I will outline the history of our understanding of this signal and the arguments for various interpretations, describe the current status of the controversy, and discuss future paths forward.
February 13, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Charles Marcus
University of Copenhagen/Microsoft
Majorana Zero Modes:
A New Kind of ‘Particle’, and Where It Can Be Found
This colloquium will present the idea of particles with non-abelian statistics and give an example that seems to occur in nature, the Majorana zero mode. “[In] nature” as used here means in man-made one-dimensional hybrid material structures near absolute zero. The relevance of Majorana modes to quantum computing will be addressed as well.
February 20, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Nadya Mason
University of Illinois
TBA
February 27, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Frans Pretorious
Princeton University
TBA
March 12, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Ignacio Cirac
Max Planck Institute
Simulation of Quantum Many-body Systems
Quantum many-body systems are very hard to simulate, as computational
resources (time and memory) typically grow exponentially with system size.
However, quantum computers or analog quantum simulators may perform that task
in a much more efficient way. In this talk, I will first review some of the methods
that have been proposed for this task and then explain the advantages
and disadvantages of analog quantum simulators with respect to quantum computers.
I will also describe possible applications in condensed matter physics, high-energy
physics, and chemistry.
March 26, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Andrew Wray
NYU
TBA
April 2, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Feryal Ozel
University of Arizona
TBA
April 16, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Netta Engelhardt
MIT
TBA
April 23, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Sabetta Matsumoto
Georgia Tech
TBA
May 7, 2020 Thursday 4:00 PM
+
726
Broadway Room 940
Physics Colloquia
(
colloquia)
Joanna Aizenberg
Harvard University
TBA
