We are rapidly approaching the centenary of quantum mechanics making this a good time to reflect on the past as a springboard for the bold research that the 21st century community of physicists can aspire to. One of the unexpected discoveries of Quantum Mechanics is Spin, a concept introduced in 1925 by a young German at Columbia University, Ralph Kronig. Kronig's bold thesis was strongly...
I will discuss the interplay between electron-phonon coupling and electron-electron correlations in multi-orbital Hubbard models. I will show that in a two-orbital Hubbard model coupled with a Jahn-Teller phonon mode, polaronic effects and Mott physics can either compete or coexist according to the ratio between electron-phonon coupling and Hund's exchange [1]. Indeed this follows from the...
Strange metal behavior – best known as a linear-in-temperature electrical resistivity out of which unconventional superconductivity nucleates – is ubiquitous in many classes of strongly correlated electron systems [1], and has recently also been observed in new flat band platforms. A unified understanding is in high demand. The heavy fermion compound YbRh$_2$Si$_2$ is a particularly versatile...
Motivated by recent experiments on pump-induced polar ordering in the quantum paraelectric SrTiO$_3$, I will present a study of a driven phonon system close to a second-order polar transition.
Analyzing its classical dynamics, my collaborators and I find that sufficiently strong driving leads to transitions into polar phases whose structures, determined by the light polarization, are not all...
