Seminar series
Date
Mon, 24 May 2010
Time
12:00 -
13:00
Location
L3
Speaker
Djordje Minic
Organisation
VirginiaTech
Recent theoretical advances in string theory relate in an unexpected way the physics of gravity in certain D dimensional space-times with the dynamics of quantum field theories living on the associated (D-1) dimensional space-time boundary. This unsuspected relationship offers a remarkable new tool for dealing with some outstanding problems in condensed matter physics. In the first part of the talk I aim to explain both the intuitive and technical underpinnings of these new developments. In the second half of the talk I will present some recent results on aging in systems far from equilibrium and also some new avenues for research in condensed matter physics which involve the interplay of gauge fields, membranes and many-body systems. In particular this last work opens up an exciting possibility for fundamentally new states of condensed matter.