Members of the group

Stephan Rachel , Post-doc Assistant PhD Karlsruhe, Germany I'm interested in strongly correlated electron systems (e.g., spin models and magnetism) and entanglement in interacting quantum systems. In addition, my current research is focused on topological insulators and topological excitations in superconducting micro circuits.

Doron Bergman, Post-doc Assistant PhD Santa-Barbara (Leon Balents) My research is in the field of strongly correlated electron systems. In particular, I have focused on various frustrated magnetic (and other) systems (quantum and classical), topological effects in various phases (superconductors and insulators), cold atom Bose-Fermi mixtures on optical lattices, the Hall effect in Bismuth in a strong magnetic field, and dynamics in central spin systems. Doron Bergman is now working at Caltech, where he has obtained a research associate fellowship.

Peter Orth, PhD student Cold atoms, dissipation in quantum systems My research lies in the crossover regime of condensed matter theory and ultracold atoms. Recently, I have been studying a realization of the quantum Ising model with dissipation in a two-component gas of cold atoms in an optical lattice (together with Ivan Stanic, Phys. Rev. A 77, 051601(R) (2008)). I am further interested in cold-atom Bose-Fermi mixtures that give rise to the fascinating supersolid phase Phys. Rev. A 80, 023624 (2009), and dynamical aspects of these systems.

Ivan Stanic, PhD student Graphene, Dirac particles My current research interests lie in the field of increasingly popular single and bi-layer graphene. Till now I have studied the transport properties of Dirac fermions in graphene and concretely its relation to the Klein paradox. Second topic of interest is the role of trigonal warping in bi-layer graphene. And recently the role of Dirac particles in photonic crystals as well as the general behavior of interacting Dirac fermions has attracted my attention.

Francis Song, PhD student (co-direction with Prof. Steven Girvin) DMRG, entanglement in many-body systems My interests are in the increasingly convergent fields of condensed matter and atomic physics, where more and more many-body Hamiltonians are realized in optical lattices of fermions and bosons, as well as Bose-Einstein condensates with spin degrees of freedom. Recently I have started work in using the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) method to simulate one-dimensional many-body systems, focusing on the search for ways to improve and extend the method to critical and higher-dimensional systems using the perspective and techniques of quantum information theory. I am particularly interested in studying the role of entanglement in classical simulation of quantum systems.

Prasenjit Dutt, PhD student Non-equilibrium transport in nanosystems My current area of interest is non-equilibrium quantum transport. In particular, I study nano-systems in steady state using Keldysh techniques and the Non-Equilibrium Density Matrix approach. Entropy production in such systems and its connection with information theory is also under investigation. In particular, the role of entanglement entropy in such systems is a topic of active interest.

Undergraduate students

Former members