Spin Glasses - Redux

by John Mydosh (Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratorium and Instituut-Lorentz, Leiden Universiteit, The Netherlands)

Monday 10 Oct 2011, 15:00 → 17:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Rasetti (Dip. di Fisica - Edificio G. Marconi)

Since the 40th year anniversary of the discovery of spin glass is only a few months away I will begin with a historical review: “What is a spin glass”. Such entails the basic experimental properties and the early theories and models with their successes and failures. Then I leap from the 1980’s into the 2000’s and the present state of spin glass behavior, e.g., chiral, quantum and nanostructured spin glasses. Finally I conclude with controversy – the main element of a vibrant research area. Is there a phase transition for the three-dimensional (isotropic) Heisenberg spin glass? And, in an Ising spin glass does a phase transition occur in a magnetic field at the de Almeida/Thouless line? Lastly, I must mention the various “spin-offs” or applications of the spin glass conception into other scientific areas beyond physics.