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Theory of Condensed Matter
Theoretical Condensed Matter physics is about building models of physical processes, often driven by experimental data, generalising the solutions of those models to make experimental predictions, and transferring the concepts gained into other areas of research. Theory plays an important role in understanding known phenomena and in predicting new ones.
With over seventy members, the TCM Group is one of the largest research Groups in the Cavendish Laboratory, and the largest university Condensed Matter Theory group in the country. Able to trace its history back for over sixty years, it has been home to many leading theoreticians.
Starting at the first principles microscopic level - with the Schrödinger equation - many properties of materials can now be calculated with a high degree of accuracy. We work on refining and developing new calculational tools and applying them to problems in physics, chemistry, materials science and biology.
Solids often show unusual collective behaviour resulting from cooperative quantum or classical phenomena. For this type of physics a more model-based approach is appropriate, and we are using such methods to attack problems in magnetism, superconductivity, nonlinear optics, mesoscopic systems, polymers, and colloids.
Collective behaviour comes even more to the fore in systems on a larger scale. As examples, we work on self-organising structures in "soft" condensed matter systems, non-linear dynamics of interacting systems, the observer in quantum mechanics, and models of biophysical processes, from the molecular scale up to neural systems.
The TCM Group is very sorry to learn of the death, on 29th March, of Prof. Philip W. Anderson, arguably the pre-eminent condensed matter theorist of the last century. Phil was Head of TCM from 1967 to 1975, and delighted to point out that, in naming the Group, he coined the term "condensed matter physics." In 1977 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with John Van Vleck and Sir Nevill Mott) for "fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems."
News archive(Click the above tab to reload the Seminars list.)
More seminars- Cardelino: computational integration of somatic clonal substructure and single-cell transcriptomes. Nat. Methods 1 - 8 (2020)
- Analytical theory of pyrochlore cooperative paramagnets Phys. Rev. B 101 115107 (2020)
- First-principles characterization of single-electron polaron in WO3 Phys. Rev. Research 2 012052 (2020)
- Long-term expansion, genomic stability and in vivo safety of adult human pancreas organoids. BMC Devel. Biol. 20 4 (2020)
- On growth and force: mechanical forces in development. Development 147 dev187302 (2020)
- Al/Ga-Doped Li7La3Zr2O12 Garnets as Li-Ion Solid-State Battery Electrolytes: Atomistic Insights into Local Coordination Environments and Their Influence on 17O, 27Al, and 71Ga NMR Spectra. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 142 3132 - 3148 (2020)
- Coherent propagation of quasiparticles in topological spin liquids at finite temperature Phys. Rev. B 101 064428 (2020)
- Cavity Higgs-Polaritons Phys. Rev. Research 2 013143 (2020)
- Prediction of quasi-one-dimensional superconductivity in metastable two-dimensional boron Phys. Rev. B 101 054518 (2020)
- First-principles high pressure structure searching, longitudinal-transverse mode coupling and absence of simple cubic phase in sulfur New J. Phys. 22 023020 (2020)
- Tenfold Way for Quadratic Lindbladians Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 040401 (2020)
- Classical nucleation theory predicts the shape of the nucleus in homogeneous solidification. J. Chem. Phys. 152 044103 (2020)
- Validating the validation: reanalyzing a large-scale comparison of deep learning and machine learning models for bioactivity prediction. J. Comput. Aided Mol. Des. 1 - 14 (2020)
- Iterative Unbiasing of Quasi-Equilibrium Sampling. J. Chem. Theory Comput. 16 100 - 107 (2020)
- Tracing the Dynamics of Stem Cell Fate. CSH Perspect. Biol. a036202 (2020)
- Development of a Novel Cell-Permeable Protein-Protein Interaction Inhibitor for the Polo-box Domain of Polo-like Kinase 1 ACS Omega acsomega.9b03626 (2020)
- Variational Schrieffer-Wolff Transformations for Quantum Many-Body Dynamics Phys. Rev. B 101 014302 (2020)
- Ab initio structure prediction methods for battery materials a review of recent computational efforts to predict the atomic level structure and bonding in materials for rechargeable batteries Johns. Matthey Technol. Rev. 64 103 - 118 (2020)
- Decoration of plasmonic Mg nanoparticles by partial galvanic replacement. J. Chem. Phys. 151 244708 (2019)
- Critical Response of a Quantum van der Pol Oscillator. Phys. Rev. Lett. 123 250401 (2019)
Theoretical Condensed Matter physics is about building models of physical processes, often driven by experimental data, generalising the solutions of those models to make experimental predictions, and transferring the concepts gained into other areas of research. Theory plays an important role in understanding known phenomena and in predicting new ones.
With over seventy members, the TCM Group is one of the largest research Groups in the Cavendish Laboratory, and the largest university Condensed Matter Theory group in the country. Able to trace its history back for over sixty years, it has been home to many leading theoreticians.
Starting at the first principles microscopic level - with the Schrödinger equation - many properties of materials can now be calculated with a high degree of accuracy. We work on refining and developing new calculational tools and applying them to problems in physics, chemistry, materials science and biology.
Solids often show unusual collective behaviour resulting from cooperative quantum or classical phenomena. For this type of physics a more model-based approach is appropriate, and we are using such methods to attack problems in magnetism, superconductivity, nonlinear optics, mesoscopic systems, polymers, and colloids.
Collective behaviour comes even more to the fore in systems on a larger scale. As examples, we work on self-organising structures in "soft" condensed matter systems, non-linear dynamics of interacting systems, the observer in quantum mechanics, and models of biophysical processes, from the molecular scale up to neural systems.
News
The TCM Group is very sorry to learn of the death, on 29th March, of Prof. Philip W. Anderson, arguably the pre-eminent condensed matter theorist of the last century. Phil was Head of TCM from 1967 to 1975, and delighted to point out that, in naming the Group, he coined the term "condensed matter physics." In 1977 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with John Van Vleck and Sir Nevill Mott) for "fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems."
Recent Publications
- Cardelino: computational integration of somatic clonal substructure and single-cell transcriptomes. Nat. Methods 1 - 8 (2020)
- Analytical theory of pyrochlore cooperative paramagnets Phys. Rev. B 101 115107 (2020)
- First-principles characterization of single-electron polaron in WO3 Phys. Rev. Research 2 012052 (2020)
- Long-term expansion, genomic stability and in vivo safety of adult human pancreas organoids. BMC Devel. Biol. 20 4 (2020)
- On growth and force: mechanical forces in development. Development 147 dev187302 (2020)
- Al/Ga-Doped Li7La3Zr2O12 Garnets as Li-Ion Solid-State Battery Electrolytes: Atomistic Insights into Local Coordination Environments and Their Influence on 17O, 27Al, and 71Ga NMR Spectra. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 142 3132 - 3148 (2020)
- Coherent propagation of quasiparticles in topological spin liquids at finite temperature Phys. Rev. B 101 064428 (2020)
- Cavity Higgs-Polaritons Phys. Rev. Research 2 013143 (2020)
- Prediction of quasi-one-dimensional superconductivity in metastable two-dimensional boron Phys. Rev. B 101 054518 (2020)
- First-principles high pressure structure searching, longitudinal-transverse mode coupling and absence of simple cubic phase in sulfur New J. Phys. 22 023020 (2020)
- Tenfold Way for Quadratic Lindbladians Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 040401 (2020)
- Classical nucleation theory predicts the shape of the nucleus in homogeneous solidification. J. Chem. Phys. 152 044103 (2020)
- Validating the validation: reanalyzing a large-scale comparison of deep learning and machine learning models for bioactivity prediction. J. Comput. Aided Mol. Des. 1 - 14 (2020)
- Iterative Unbiasing of Quasi-Equilibrium Sampling. J. Chem. Theory Comput. 16 100 - 107 (2020)
- Tracing the Dynamics of Stem Cell Fate. CSH Perspect. Biol. a036202 (2020)
- Development of a Novel Cell-Permeable Protein-Protein Interaction Inhibitor for the Polo-box Domain of Polo-like Kinase 1 ACS Omega acsomega.9b03626 (2020)
- Variational Schrieffer-Wolff Transformations for Quantum Many-Body Dynamics Phys. Rev. B 101 014302 (2020)
- Ab initio structure prediction methods for battery materials a review of recent computational efforts to predict the atomic level structure and bonding in materials for rechargeable batteries Johns. Matthey Technol. Rev. 64 103 - 118 (2020)
- Decoration of plasmonic Mg nanoparticles by partial galvanic replacement. J. Chem. Phys. 151 244708 (2019)
- Critical Response of a Quantum van der Pol Oscillator. Phys. Rev. Lett. 123 250401 (2019)