Monday, March 21, 2011

Catch of the Day

The ICTP's wonderful YouTube channel hosts two short lecture clips by Roman Jackiw, on the subject of fractional charge and Majorana fermions.

Starting with his 1976 paper, which introduces new topological techniques into physics, Jackiw briefly reviews the history of such extensions to the Dirac equation. He also discusses the long gap between an early application to polyacetylene and the more recent modelling of graphene. Citing this 2007 paper, he ends with the question: who will be the first to discover Majorana type fermions? Susy zombies worshippers, neutrino physicists or condensed matter physicists?
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2 comments:

  1. MetatronMarch 21, 2011 at 8:44 PM

    I would cast my vote for the third group, as many condensed matter teams are currently working on setting up the experiments to detect not only Majorana fermions but also a mirror magnetic monopole. This should be a very interesting year.

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  2. KeaMarch 21, 2011 at 9:24 PM

    Indeed, susy zombies and confused neutrino physicists don't look like a good bet in this competition.

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