Disorder and Quantum Phases of Matter

A principal goal of modern condensed matter physics is control: Control of topological properties, emergent collective phases, decoherence, and entanglement. In seeking these goals, complex aspects of quantum materials physics are often purposefully or inadvertently ignored. Quenched disorder is such an aspect that complicates the interpretation of experiments and the formulation of theory, despite the fact that perfect crystallinity is a never-realized ideal in materials. 

In this Aspen Winter Workshop, we seek to shift the focus to disorder itself, as a source or an unavoidable accompanying feature of many remarkable phenomena observed in modern quantum materials. Although randomness has driven a wide range of modern theoretical developments in recent years (such as many-body localization), there has not been a US-based conference in recent memory with a singular focus on disorder effects in quantum materials physics. Themes will include, but are not limited to:

(1) Disorder, strange metals, and superconductivity

(2) The effects of disorder on competing phases and quantum phase transitions

(3) Localized strongly interacting states of matter

(4) The intertwining of disorder and topology

Questions driving our workshop include

• Is disorder a necessary ingredient for strange metallicity in non-Fermi liquids? What role does it play in high-Tc superconductivity?

• How can disorder be used to control and probe the physics of intertwined orders in strongly correlated materials? 

• Are quasiparticles well-defined in a strongly localized and interacting Coulomb glass?

• How protected are topological excitations like Majorana-fermion zero modes in the presence of quantum fluctuations and disorder?