Speaker: Kaden Hazzard (Rice University)

Host: Chandan Setty

Title: A strange exchange: paraparticles and where to find them.

Abstract: 

Particle exchange statistics is a fundamental Characteristic of quantum matter, conventionally thought to be constrained to either fermionic or bosonic. Each type gives distinct phenomena: fermions and the consequent exclusion principle lead to the structure of the periodic table and properties of metals; bosons and their bunching give lasers and superfluidity. I will discuss recent research in our group that has shown other exchange statistics are possible (beyond already-known anyons restricted to two dimensions) and naturally emerge as excitations in spin models. These paraparticles admit non-interacting theories, unlike anyons, and I will describe our vision of using this to form the foundation of new analytic and numerical methods to provide a window into correlated matter.