Special CMSP Seminar WEDNESDAY 24 February at 14:00 hrs.

[Condensed Matter Section]

Special Seminar in Condensed Matter Physics and
Statistical Physics


WEDNESDAY 24 February at 14:00 hrs
EULER Lecture Room, Terrace Level, Leonardo building


Michele BURRELLO (MPI-Institut fuer Quantenoptik, Garching, Germany)

"Topological Phases in Ultracold Fermions: Artificial Fluxes Meet 
Spin-Orbit Couplings"


Abstract:
The recent successes in coupling ultracold gases to synthetic gauge 
potentials show the exceptional possibilities of such setups in studying 
and probing many-body quantum physics.
In this talk, I will review some aspects of the theory of topological 
phases of matter and I will describe how the combined action of 
synthetic magnetic fields and spin-orbit couplings allow us to engineer 
in such systems both symmetry-protected topological phases and 
non-trivial topological order.

I will focus in particular on a ladder model of fermions which mimics a 
one-dimensional topological superconductor and presents fractionalized 
edge modes. The physical observables suitable for the detection of 
topological phases in this system will be examined also in the presence 
of trapping potentials and Hubbard interactions.

Finally, I will discuss further examples of higher-dimensional 
topological systems characterized by synthetic non-Abelian gauge potentials.