Coordination Funds

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Maria Roser Valenti
• Subject Area: Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics ; Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 449872909

The interplay of topology, dynamics and correlations in interacting quantum systems – the central topic of QUAST – yields a wealth of fascinating new phases of matter, such as topological and chiral superconductivity, fractional Chern insulators, topological heavy fermions, non-thermal topological states, whose microscopic understanding and quantitative prediction pose a tremendous challenge to many-body theory. In the first funding period, QUAST initiated a coordinated effort on many-body theoretical method development and concerted experiments to push the frontiers of quantitative modeling of topological and dynamical phenomena in correlated materials. In the meantime, this topic has evolved into a central research field worldwide, further triggered by recent experimental and theoretical breakthroughs in van der Waals platforms, moiré systems, kagome metals and heavy-fermion intermetallics, with scientists of our initiative playing a leadership role. On the phenomena side we disclosed highly unconventional charge order in kagome metals, uncovered the nature of interacting phases in transition-metal dichalcogenides and magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, and demonstrated energy-over-temperature scaling in a heavy fermion system. On the methodological side we introduced new classification schemes of interacting topological phases, extended the development of non-local many-body approaches, introduced non-equilibrium steady-state implementations in our algorithms and intensified our development of open-source toolboxes dedicated to many-body methods and applications. In the second funding period we will exploit the knowledge gained in the first funding period towards new experimentally important observables and to new regimes of correlated quantum matter. Our goal is to establish a predictive electronic structure theory to understand, explain and anticipate the behavior of quantum matter at the interface of spatio-temporal electronic correlations, topology and dynamics. To this end, we develop theoretical ansätze at complementary levels of approximation towards an interoperable platform of benchmarked tools. We will address the following set of open questions: (1) How do spatio-temporal correlations and topology shape transport and out-of-equilibrium states? (2) How do disorder and inhomogeneities affect topology and dynamics in correlated quantum matter? (3) How do topology and quantum geometry affect phase diagrams, quantum phase transitions and the dynamics of quantum matter?. (4) How does the coupling between electrons and lattice degrees of freedom affect dynamics and metastability in correlated quantum matter?.To answer these questions, we will concentrate on a set of demonstrator models and “anchor” testbed materials (intermetallic heavy fermions, van der Waals and kagome metals). We will perform full simulation chains for the systems bridging spatio-temporal scales and perform rigorous comparisons to experiment.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5249: Quantitative Spatio-Temporal Model-Building for Correlated Electronic Matter
• International Connection: Japan
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Ryotaro Arita