05/10/2016
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 has been awarded with one half to David J. Thouless, and the other half to F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 has been awarded with one half to David J. Thouless, and the other half to F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”.
In the 1970’s, Kosterlitz and Thouless showed how a topological phase transition could occur in two-dimensional systems of magnetic spins that can only lie within the plane. At low temperatures, the spins are arranged in pairs of vortices, but above the phase transition temperature the vortices become “unbound” and can move around independently. In 1982, Duncan Haldane showed that analogous topological phases can occur in spin-chains, one-dimensional arrays of magnetic moments, but only if the spins are integer-valued, not half-integer values.
More on the Nobel laureate web site.
