Transport and Optical Properties of Chiral Quantum Materials

Transport and optical Properties of chiral quantum materials Alexander G. Abanov (PI) & Dmitri E. Kharzeev (co-PI), Stony Brook University Chirality (or “handedness”) is a ubiquitous concept in modern science, from particle physics to biology. In particle and nuclear physics, the fundamental constituents of matter - quarks and leptons – possess a definite chirality that is defined as a projection of spin on momentum. Chirality plays a crucial role in fundamental interactions, with weak force discriminating between the left- and right-handed particles. In nuclear physics, high energy collisions produce collective states of strongly interacting chiral quarks. Recently, the progress in fabricating new materials has resulted in the discovery that a number of 3D materials possess emergent chiral quasiparticles that behave similarly to quarks and leptons. A development of an adequate theory of strongly correlated systems of chiral fermions has thus become an urgent problem in both condensed matter physics and nuclear theory.  We propose to study these systems using approaches developed in condensed-matter and nuclear physics and combining them with more recent topological methods. The latter methods are also known to describe the properties of materials robust with respect to the interaction strength. Specifically, we propose to investigate how a non-trivial topology is imprinted on hydrodynamic and kinetic equations through quantum anomalies. The three directions of research are: The proposed research explores broad interdisciplinary connections between condensed matter physics and nuclear/particle physics. The hydrodynamics and topology might hold the key to understanding many universal dynamical properties of systems at vastly different scales, from femto-meter (quarks and gluons of Quantum Chromo-Dynamics), to nano-meter (e.g., cold atoms, quantum Hall effect, topological insulators and graphene), to parsec (e.g., magnetic helicity and polarization of cosmic microwave background in cosmology). The projects outlined in this proposal will lead to the improved understanding of macroscopic phenomena induced by the quantum anomalies and can result in the discovery of new quantum effects; they can also result in practical applications beyond the academic domain.