Welcome to the Selected topics in condensed matter physics - Proseminar
Ad astra per aspera.

General info and course description

Time: Mondays, 12:30 p.m. CEST
No meetings on: Pentecost (May 11), Ascension (May 25)
Place: Seminar room 1083, Notkestr. 9

The course teaches to read and present research papers by "learning by doing". Tasks:
1) Select a paper in topological condensed matter physics with at least 1000 citations and present it in class (concrete paper to be discussed with head of course).
2) Listen to the talks of the others and answer possibly questions they prepare.
3) Hand in your talk and preparation for grading and as reference material for others
Zoom-Link: ZOOM-LINK

Deadline for paper selection April 20, 2026 via email

Suggestions for papers

• Your choice: Open Google Scholar, type in a condensed matter topic you are interested in (or where there has been a Nobel prize), sort by citations
• Haldane 1988: Model for a Quantum Hall Effect without Landau Levels: Condensed-Matter Realization of the "Parity Anomaly"
• Haldane 1983: Continuum dynamics of the 1-D Heisenberg antiferromagnet: Identification with the O (3) nonlinear sigma model
• Kitaev 2009: Unpaired Majorana fermions in quantum wires
• Kitaev 2006: Anyons in an exactly solved model and beyond
• Kosterlitz Thouless 1973: Ordering, metastability and phase transitions in two-dimensional systems
  (or Berezinskii, V. L. 1971: Destruction of Long-range Order in One-dimensional and Two-dimensional Systems having a Continuous Symmetry Group I. Classical Systems)

Order of talks

• April 27, 12:30 p.m., Riccardo Grazi, "Quantum batteries and the Lindblad formalism"
• June 8 Moritz Korf, "Ordering, metastability and phase transitions in two-dimensional systems" (Kosterlitz-Thouless, 1973)
• June 15 (!10 a.m. CEST!) Malte Röntgen, "New insights on spectral properties of graphs" (to be published, 2026)
• June 22 Andres Reyes Mantilla, "Anyons in an exactly solvable model" (Kitaev, 2006)
• June 29 Felix Gerken, "Large degeneracy in the XXZ Heisenberg chain" (publication talk, 2026)
• July 6 Anshuman Tripathi, "Topological frequency converter in spin chains with arbitrary efficiency (publication talk, 2026)
• July 20 Marin Bonkhoff, "Symmtries and integrability in the anyon-Hubbard model" (publication talk, 2026)

Documents