Annual-Report-2019

CHIRAL MATTER:
THEORY AND APPLICATIONS
The main goal of the project is to form a new interdisciplinary Chiral Matter
collaboration in Loire Valley to focus on key open problems in study of
quantum strongly coupled matter, quantum coherence and topological
order. The project will create a network of theoretical and experimental
groups in the partner laboratories of Région Centre Val de Loire focused on
joint efforts on basic and applied research of chiral matter.
Materials & Energy Sciences 2019
24
Prof. Dmitri Kharzeev
From: Stony Brook University - US
In residence at: Institute Denis Poisson (IDP)
- Tours
Nationality: American
Dates:
LE STUDIUM Research Professor
Smart Loire Valley General Programme
June 2018 to September 2018
June 2019 to August 2019
Dmitri Kharzeev was educated at Moscow State
University; he received his PhD in particle and
nuclear physics there in 1990. He then spent two
postdoctoral years in the Italian National Institute
of Nuclear Physics, three years in the Theory
Division at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, and a
year at Bielefeld University in Germany. In 1997
he joined the newly created RIKEN-BNL Research
Center at Brookhaven National Laboratory under
direction of Prof. T.D. Lee, a Nobel laureate. In
2000 he became a Scientist with tenure at BNL;
he had been the head of the Nuclear Theory group
there from 2004 till 2010. In 2010, Kharzeev has
become a Professor (since 2018 – a Distinguished
Professor) at the Department of Physics and
Astronomy at Stony Brook University where he
directs the Center for Quantum Materials; he also
continues to hold the Senior scientist appointment
at BNL, where he is the Head of the RIKEN-BNL
Theory group.
Dr Maxim Chernodub
Host scientist
Maxim Chernodub has received his PhD in 1999 at
the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
In 1999-2001 and 2003-2008 he was a researcher
in the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental
Physics (ITEP), Moscow; in 2001-2003 he was a JSPS
postdoctoral fellow in Kanazawa, Japan. He received
his habilitation (Doctor of Science) degree in 2008 at
ITEP. Since 2008 he is a researcher (and since 2016
– a senior researcher) of CNRS at the University of
Tours, France. He received an Award of scientific
excellence of CNRS (2010), outstanding Referee of
the American Physical Society (2018) and Elsevier
(2018). Recently his research has been focused
on properties of theory of strong interactions in
exotic environments of heavy-ion collisions at
high temperature, strong magnetic field, and fast
rotation. He also works on transport phenomena
associated with anomalies in quantum field theories
with applications in solid-state physics.
The experimental branch of the project aims to provide a solid ground for
future commercialization of these ideas in the domains of transmission and
storage of energy and information.
The project will foster communication across disciplinary boundaries and
among theorists, experimentalists and engineers. It will offer a unique
opportunity for training postdocs and students by integrating them in these
collaborations.
The achievements to date include:
1. The development of the idea of topological stabilization of a
superconducting qubit by using a novel knot geometry. This should
result in a longer quantum coherence time and this in a higher fidelity
of the quantum computer based on the proposed “knot qubit”. The
analytical and numerical calculations of the stabilizing properties of
the knot qubit are underway.
2. Basing on this theoretical idea (developed by M. Chernodub, J. Garaud
and D. Kharzeev in Tours), we started working on the establishment
of the “QuantiLoire” research consortium including experimentalists
from the Loire valley region based at CEA and GREMAN laboratories. A
particular aim of the consortium is to produce a prototype of the knot
qubit for further experimental studies.
3. We have also considered an alternative direction based on
usual, unknotted qubit made of a so-called noncentrosymmetric
superconductor material. We expect that this material should have
an intrinsic stabilization of the logical states. On the theoretical side,
we are advancing the investigation of the ground state of these qubits
using numerical Monte-Carlo simulations of thermodynamic states.
4. Proposed a new effect in the behavior of chiral solitons on vortices
in chiral media: the “chiral propulsion”. Namely, the soliton is
transported along the vortex in the direction determined by its chirality
(in collaboration with Y. Hirono, A. Sadofyev).
5. Proposed a new kind of a chiral magnetic effect induced by light in
symmetric and asymmetric Weyl semimetals (with students E. Philip
and S. Kaushik).
6. Argued that a conformal anomaly in Weyl/Dirac semimetals generates
a bulk electric current perpendicular to a temperature gradient and the
direction of a background magnetic field. An experimental realization
of this new type of «giant» Nernst effect is proposed. The effect may be
used for an efficient electric-power generation from thermal sources.
7. Demonstrated that a rotating warm phonon gas generates a new
«zilch» current along the axis of rotation. The effect is related to a
gravitational anomaly. The zilch quantum number, which literally
means «nothing», may have important applications in transmission of
information.