You are most cordially invited to the ICTP Colloquium
on "Topological physics as censor, and as microscope"
by Prof. Roderich Moessner from the Max Planck
Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany.
The Colloquium will take place TODAY, Tuesday
26 August 2025, in the Budinich Lecture Hall at ICTP at
14:00 hrs CET.
Biosketch:
Roderich Moessner is director at the Max Planck Institute
for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden. After his
DPhil in theoretical physics at Oxford University, he was
postdoc at Princeton, and held faculty appointments at École
normale supérieure in Paris and at Oxford University.
His research interests are in condensed matter and materials
physics, especially concerning new and topological forms of
order, as well as the study of classical and quantum
many-body dynamics in and out of equilibrium. His
theoretical discoveries include classical and quantum spin
liquids, emergent magnetic monopoles, and non-equilibrium
spatiotemporal ordering phenomena. He is recipient of the
Leibniz Prize and of the Europhysics Prize.
Abstract:
Topological condensed matter exhibits properties which can
be unusually robust to local perturbations. Indeed, this
property may make local information very hard to access, a
phenomenon that may be called topological censorship. Here,
we present two instances where this tension between local
and topological physics brings up interesting physical
phenomena. One is drawn from quantum Hall physics, where we
show that the local distribution of the topologically
quantised current flow is continuously tunable between
qualitatively different regimes [1]. The other is a
topological magnet, in which measurements of the global
magnetisation dynamics reveal the appearance of a dynamical
fractal and subdiffusion on the lattice scale in a
stochiometric material [2].
[1] B. Doucot, D. Kovrizhin, R. M., PNAS
121 (39) e2410703121 (2024)
[2] J. N. Hallen, S. A. Grigera, D. A. Tennant, C.
Castelnovo, R.M. Science 378, 1218 (2022)
Light refreshments will be served after the event.
For info, please check the following link: https://indico.ictp.it/event/11094/
Looking forward to your participation.
With best regards,
Director's Office, ICTP