Next week's seminars

[Cond.Matt. & Stat.Mech.Section]

JOINT ICTP/SISSA STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR


Tuesday, 19 March -   11:30 hrs.

 

Luigi Stasi Seminar Room -  ICTP Leonardo Building - 1st floor

 

Masud HAQUE     ( Max-Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden )

 

"Non-equilibrium dynamics in   isolated quantum systems"



Abstract


Quantum many-body physics has traditionally been dominated by detailed investigations of equilibrium properties and low-energy excitations. In the last decade or so, motivated by novel experimental possibilities such as cold atoms, the study of quantum matter far from equilibrium has emerged as an important and exciting new field.

I will start with a selection of new questions and phenomena that have appeared in the context of non-equilibrium evolution in isolated systems.  I will end by focusing on a specific example, namely, the dynamics of composite objects in lattice systems. such as repulsively bound pairs, triplets and clusters.



===


SEMINAR on  Disorder and strong electron correlations

 
Thursday, 21 March -  11:30 a.m.

 

Luigi Stasi Seminar Room,  Leonardo Building - first floor

 

Andrea GAMBASSI  (SISSA)

 

"Irreversible work, large deviations, critical Casimir effect, and universality in quantum quenches"

 

Abstract



Recent experimental progress in the physics of ultracold atomic gases has revived the interest in the behavior of thermally isolated quantum statistical systems, especially after sudden changes (quenches) of their control parameters.  Considering the quench as a thermodynamic transformation, it is natural to focus on the irreversible work done on the system, which is characterized by a certain probability distribution.  By studying its large deviations, i.e., rare fluctuations of the work per unit volume, we establish a connection with the physics of a classical system confined in a film geometry.  If the system is quenched close to a (quantum) critical point, both the edge singularity and the large deviations of the irreversible work acquire universal features dictated by the critical Casimir effect in the corresponding classical system.  In systems of bosons, the statistics of the work may additionally display a transition which is analogous to the equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation.