Winter Semester 2018-2019

The 2018-2019 winter lecture courses run from October 8th - December 21st 2018 and from January 7th - February 2nd 2019. The following lectures are offered:

General lecture: Many-body Theory in Condensed Matter

lecturer: Hong-Hao Tu
time: Tuesdays 13:00-14:30; SE2/102; Wednesdays 16:40-18:10
location: Tuesdays: SE2/102; Wednesdays: BZW/A120
content: 

1. Many-particle quantum mechanics: second quantization, path integral methods and Green's functions 2. Interacting bosons: symmetry breaking and phase transition 3. Interacting fermions: Fermi liquid, superconductivity, Hubbard model and strong correlations 4. Physics in one dimension: Luttinger liquid, Haldane conjecture and several important models 5. Role of topology: integer and fractional quantum Hall effects, topological phases and anyons

format: Every 4th lecture will be a tutorial session.

 

General lecture: Computational Tools for Quantum Many-body Physics

lecturer: Jan Budich
time: Tuesdays 14:50-16:20; Wednesdays 14:50-16:20
location: Tuesdays: SE2/102; Wednesdays: SE2/201
content: 

In this lecture, numerical tools for quantum many-body physics will be theoretically discussed and practically applied. We will cover mean-field theory, exact diagonalization, tensor network methods such as DMRG, and quantum Monte Carlo methods. The successful participant will be guided with accompanying exercises towards developing own source codes for solving basic quantum many-body problems using the aforementioned methods.

format: Every 4th lecture will be a tutorial session.

 

General lecture: Atomic and Molecular Systems in Strong Laser Fields

lecturer: Ulf Saalmann and Frank Grossmann
time: Mondays 16:40-18:10; Tuesdays 11:10-12:40
location: Mondays: BZW/A120; Tuesdays: SE2/201
content: 

- basics of laser-matter coupling, time-dependent Schrödinger equation (including its numerical propagation) - Gaussian wave-packet dynamics, semi-classics - time-dependent density functional theory - intense-field S-matrix theory, strong-field approximation - basic processes of laser-atom/molecule interaction (tunneling, photo-effect, multi-photon absorption, above-threshold ionization, high-harmonic generation)

format: Every 4th lecture will be a tutorial session.

 

General lecture: Theoretical Biophysics

lecturer: Prof. F. Jülicher and Prof. S. Grill
time: Lecture: Tuesdays 11:10-12:40; Tutorial: Thursdays 14:50-16:20
location: MPI PKS Seminar Room 3
content: 

Statistical Physics of polymers and biological membranes, active processes, stochastic motion in potential energy landscapes, dynamics of biological molecules

 

General lecture: Nonlinear Dynamics

lecturer: Prof. H Kantz (MPI-PKS)
time: Mondays: 14:50-16:20; Wednesdays: 14:50-16:20
   
location: MPI-PKS Seminar Room 3
content: Dynamical systems in discrete and continuous time, dissipative and Hamiltonian, bifurcations, routes to chaos, quantifiers for chaos, relevant examples, KAM theorem, quantum signatures of classical chaos.

 

 

Special lecture: Quantum Simulators

lecturer: André Eckardt and Markus Heyl
time: Wednesdays 16:40-18:10.
location: Seminar Room 3 MPI PKS
content: Recently a number of experimental platforms have been used to engineer clean and highly-tunable many-body systems in the laboratory. These systems can be viewed as quantum simulators for paradigmatic many-body models that are hard to treat on a classical computer. We will give an introduction to basic concepts and physical systems relevant for quantum simulation. Topics include: Atomic Quantum Gases in Optical Lattices, Rydberg Atoms, Superconducting Qubits, Trapped Ions, Mechanical Metamaterials, Floquet Engineering, Digital Quantum Simulation.

 

Special lecture: Magnetism on the nanoscale

lecturer: Prof. B. Büchner, Dr. J. Dufouleur, Dr. T. Mühl (IFW)
time: Mondays 16:40-18:10 from 09.10.17
location: IFW D2E.27
content: 

Nanomagnets, spin dynamics, spin dependent transport

 

Special lecture: Condensed matter spectroscopy

lecturer: Dmytro Inosov
time: Wednesdays 14:50-16:20
location: REC/D016
content: The goal of the lecture is to present modern spectroscopic methods with examples (e. g. in the area of magnetism). The methods presented are: photoelectron spectroscopy, x-ray spectroscopy, neutron scattering, magnetic resonance techniques, Mössbauer spectroscopy, optical spectroscopy, ion beam analysis, mass spectroscopy, tunnel spectroscopy

 

Special lecture: Thermalization and its absence in closed and open quantum systems

lecturer: Francesco Piazza and Achilleas Lazarides
time: Tuesdays 16:40-18:10
location: MPI PKS Seminar Room 3
content: 1. Equilibration in closed quantum systems. 2. Non-equilibrium field theory 3. Thermalization in classical and quantum mechanics 4. Fokker-Planck, Langevin and Boltzmann 5. Integrable systems and disordered systems, driven-dissipative systems.