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Featured SpeakerMaciej Zworski (UC Berkeley)

Title :  Mathematics of magic angles for bilayer graphene

Abstract

Magic angles are a hot topic in condensed matter physics: when two sheets of graphene are twisted by those angles the resulting material is superconducting. Please do not be scared by the physics though: I will present a very simple operator whose spectral properties are thought to determine which angles are magical.  It comes from a recent PR Letter by Tarnopolsky-Kruchkov-Vishwanath.  The mathematics behind this is an elementary blend of representation theory (of the Heisenberg group in characteristic three), Jacobi theta functions and spectral instability of non-self-adjoint operators (involving Hörmander’s bracket condition in a very simple setting).  The results will be illustrated by colourful numerics which suggest some open problems. The talk is based on a "summer relaxation project" with S. Becker, M. Embree and J. Wittsten.

 

Zoom link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/94123420042?pwd=R2I3aG53b0NHZk1wa1JPU3J5TXZKZz09

Zoom password: 577126

 

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