Condensed Matter Physics in the Alps: Geometric Frustration, Topology, Flat Bands, and Correlation in Kagome and Van der Waals Systems

Session

Thursday Morning Session II, Chair L. Rademaker

8 Jan 2026, 10:15

Saas Fee

66. Evidence for electron fractionalization in a kagome metal

Gabriel Aeppli (EPFL)

08/01/2026, 10:15

Kagome experimental

Invited talk (by invitation only)

There are long-standing ideas and experiments concerning the emergence of unconventional quasiparticles in strongly interacting Fermi systems. The most dramatic are the fractional states originally observed for the two-dimensional electron gases in semiconductor heterostructures subjected to perpendicular magnetic fields, and explained shortly thereafter by Laughlin. Others found in zero field...

46. Quantum criticality and emerging universality in kagome metals and twisted WSe2

Qimiao Si (Rice University)

08/01/2026, 10:50

Theory

Invited talk (by invitation only)

Flat bands emerge in a diverse array of materials, spanning twisted heterostructures and compounds with geometrically-frustrated lattices. They feature strong correlations as well as non-trivial topology. Recent experiments on kagome and pyrochlore metals have uncovered a rich variety of strong-correlation phenomena [1], and the 2024 discovery of superconductivity in TMD moiré systems has...