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Quantum design: understanding, creating, and controlling novel states of matter

Applicant Dr. Tobias Meng
Subject Area Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics
Term from 2017 to 2026
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 327807255
 
Final Report Year 2025

Final Report Abstract

The project "Quantum design: understanding, creating, and controlling novel states of matter“ aimed at exploring how novel quantum states of matter can be understood, created, and controlled in a constructive quantum design approach. This approach is more strongly focussed on a bottom-up construction of quantum states, and less on the descriptive modelling of given materials. In simple terms, the project was devoted to exploring how nature can be pushed into novel states of matter with a non-trivial character rooted in topology and interactions. Of central interest was the understanding and modeling of how complex collective behavior emerges in solids, how it can be induced and controlled, and what experimentally observable consequences thereof are. The project fostered fundamental understanding of complex quantum states, always combining fundamental theoretical progress with an eye for their potential applications in bulk materials, microstructured devices, as well as artificially engineered quantum systems. The research performed in this project typically approached complex quantum systems starting from suitable low-energy descriptions. Building on microscopic material specifics, the team modeled quantum many-body system by the controlled combination of interacting building blocks. It then proceeded to predict experimentally observable signatures of love quantum states, studied their transport properties, and analyzed their tunability. One central brach of the project was the analysis of relativistic and topological semimetals. This included the prediction of ordered phases resulting from interaction-driven symmetry breaking, for example in pyrochlore iridate semimetals, the prediction of transport in Weyl semimetals, especially in strong magnetic fields, and analyses of the tunability of transport characteristic in these materials using non-trivial strain patterns. Overall, this branch of research has benefitted from a close and intense collaboration with experimental partners, which has lead to numerous joint publications detailing how the intricate physics studied in this project has been detected experimentally. Another important aspect was the study of interaction topological states of matter, including fractionalized states with anyonic excitations, the analysis of braiding in such systems, and - last but not least - the analysis of the interplay of topological matter with environments. This part of the project more fundamentally pushed the boundaries of theoretical knowledge, predicted novel phenomena and identified physical prerequisites necessary for these correlated states. Overall, the project advanced understanding of complex quantum states, blending topology, interactions, and environmental effects. By combining theoretical insights with close experimental collaboration, it delivered concrete predictions rooted in the real world.

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