Quantum Behavior In Structural and Wigner Glasses

by Prof. David Reichman (Columbia University New York)

Tuesday 30 Jan 2024, 14:30 → 15:30 Europe/Zurich

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In this talk I first review the phenomenological picture of tunneling defects in low-temperature glasses. Despite the successes of this model, it has been very difficult to verify its microscopic foundations.  Leveraging the power of a novel Monte Carlo method, we have prepared in silico glasses annealed in a manner that corresponds to the range of rates found in real experiments.  Via a detailed search of the energy landscape of our model glasses, we verify that tunneling defects are the dominant excitations in glasses at ultra-low temperatures. We show that more slowly quenched glasses have fewer tunneling systems, in harmony with recent experiments.  In the second part of the talk I will briefly discuss the physics of charge order in Moiré materials, where a complex energy landscape of crystalline and glassy configurations of localized charge appears.