I just came back from Bristol, where I participated in an international conference celebrating the scientific legacy and achievements of Balazs L. Gyorffy. You can read the abstract of my talk below or download the PDF.
Haunted by Semiclassics: from optical lattices through muonium to magnetic monopoles
J. Quintanilla1,2
1SEPnet and Hubbard Theory Consortium, School of Physical Sciences,
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT1 1WX, U.K.
2 ISIS Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Oxford,
Didcot, OX11 0QX, U.K.
E-mail: j.quintanilla@kent.ac.uk
One of Balazs Györffy’s latter scientific loves was semiclassics [1,2]. As a PhD student in Bristol (1997-2001) I was exposed to this point of view and I was supposed to have been exploiting it in my research. I didn’t, though, and as a result I’ve been haunted by semiclassics ever since. For this I consider myself very fortunate. I will describe how, later on, a semiclassical approach allowed me and Chris Hooley to understand a crucial feature of optical lattices [3]; relate a personal anecdote involving muonium were semiclassics also played a key role [4]; and, finally, present a new, semiclassical theory [5] predicting bound states between artifical monopoles and 2D electrons – a new twist on a century-old problem initiated by Poincaré [6].
References
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P. Miller and B. L. Györffy, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 7 5579-5606 (1995).
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K. P. Duncan and B. L. Györffy, Annals of Physics 298, 273-333 (2002).
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C. Hooley and J. Quintanilla, Physical Review Letters 93, 080404 (2004).
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S. F. J. Cox, Reports on Progress in Physics 72, 116501 (2009).
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A. L. Baskerville and J. Quintanilla, article in preparation.
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H. Poincaré, Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. Paris 123, 530 (1896).