(Back to
the menu - click here.)
“Nuclear physics: a laboratory for
many-particle quantum mechanics “
|
Date: |
Download-files: |
Time: |
|
Thursday, 02. Oct. 2014 |
Audio-only-Recording as MP3-File (smallest
possible size):
- Audio.mp3 (ca.25Mb) ============================================ Video-Recording for any system with MP4-support:
- Video.mp4 (ca.218Mb) |
15:15 – 16:10 |
Abstract :
What
happened in the early universe just after the Big Bang?
This is one
of the most intriguing basic questions in all of science, but it is
extraordinarily difficult to answer because of insurmountable issues associated
with replaying the Big Bang in the laboratory. One route to the answer -- which
lies
at the
intersection between cosmology and materials physics -- is to use laboratory
materials to test the so-called
"Kibble-Zurek" scaling laws proposed for the formation of
defects such as cosmic strings in the early universe.
Here I will
show that a popular multiferroic material -- with its
coexisting magnetic, ferroelectric and structural
phase
transitions -- generates the crystallographic equivalent of cosmic strings. I
will describe how straightforward
solution
of the Schroedinger equation for the material allows
the important features of its behavior to be
identified and
quantified,
and present experimental results of the first unambiguous demonstration of
Kibble-Zurek scaling in real materials.