Speaker: Fabian Grusdt, LMU Munich
Abstract: Recent experimental advances, both in solids as well as ultracold atom quantum simulators, allow unprecedented microscopic studies of the structure of strongly correlated quantum matter. In the Fermi-Hubbard model, believed to underly high-Tc superconductivity, this allows to revisit a decades-old idea that strongly interacting electrons may fractionalize into partons — loosely speaking, the analogs of quarks in high-energy physics — called spinons and chargons. In this talk I will give an overview of recent theoretical and experimental results supporting this idea, starting by drawing analogies with much earlier experiments revealing the existence of quarks. Then I will discuss the implications of meson formation for understanding the origins of unconventional pairing in high-Tc superconductors. I will close by discussing prospects for direct quantum simulations of lattice gauge theories, with the vision to address even more fundamental questions about the origin of quark confinement in table-top experiments.