Thursday, October 2, 2025
CFM Lunch Seminar
Prof. Emilie Huffman, Physics Faculty Member
The October CFM Lunch Seminar will feature Assistant Professor of Physics Emilie Huffman, PhD, from Wake Forest University.
Lunch begins at 12noon, the seminar will start at 12:30pm and both will be held in Olin 105.
Please RSVP so we can order the appropriate amount of food.
Title:
Quantum Link Models and Fragmentation with Anomalous Thermalization in a 3D U(1)-symmetric Theory
Abstract:
While quantum statistical mechanics triumphs in explaining many equilibrium phenomena, systems that resist thermalization can contain robust orders of use to quantum technology, and so it is useful to figure out when and how this occurs. Traditionally models of such systems have been either integrable, or disordered, but here we explore a class of systems with neither of those properties that we have found to exhibit athermal phenomena. We first introduce quantum link models (QLMs), which were developed in the context of easing computation within particle physics, but also connect to gauge theory descriptions of certain condensed matter systems. We show their simulatability via quantum algorithms as well as cluster algorithms, and then show how a class of three dimensional U(1)-symmetric QLMs resists thermalization in large winding sectors when subjected to external electric fields. The system exhibits geometric fragmentation due to emergence of new conserved quantities. Further, we identify sectors of the system where the fragmentation can be directly related to the existence of fractonic excitations with severe mobility restrictions.