SISSA Colloquium: Geometric phases and the separation of the world | 6 November, 4 pm

[ICTP/infopoint]

*SISSA Colloquium: Geometric phases and the separation of the world *
A seminar by Michael Berry of Bristol University
SISSA, 6 November 2019, 4 pm

The waves that describe systems in quantum physics can carry information 
about how their environment has been altered, for example by forces 
acting on them. This effect, known as the geometric phase, will be at 
the centre of the Colloquium held by Michael Berry of the University of 
Bristol on Wednesday 6 November. It also occurs in the optics of 
polarised light, where it goes back to the 1830s, and it gives insight 
into the spin-statistics relation for identical quantum particles. The 
underlying mathematics is geometric: the phenomenon of parallel 
transport, which also explains how falling cats land on their feet, and 
why parking a car in a narrow space is difficult. Incorporating the 
back-reaction of the geometric phase on the dynamics of the changing 
environment exposes the unsolved problem of how strictly a system can be 
separated from a slowly-varying environment, and involves different 
mathematics: divergent infinite series.

The Colloquium will take place in the P. Budinich Main Lecture Hall at 4 
pm (SISSA, Via Bonomea 265).