Vittore Scolari (Institut Pasteur, Paris)

Kinetic signature of cooperativity in the irreversible collapse of a polymer

We investigated the kinetics of a polymer collapse due to the formation of irreversible crosslinks between its monomers. We use the contact probability as a function of the monomeric distance as a scale dependent order parameter and show in simulations the emergence of acooperative pearling instability. This produces a sharp conformational transition in time, inducing a crossover between short and long distance behaviour due to the formation of pearls. The size of pearls and the transition time depends on the equilibrium dynamics of the polymer and the rate at which cross links are formed. We finally confirm experimentally the existence of this transition using a chromosome conformation capture experiment.

Pierre-François Cohadon (Laboratoire Kastler Brossel and Virgo Collaboration)

Gravitational-wave detection and quantum-limited measurements

Detecting gravitational waves required 4 decades of experimental effort to reach a sensitivity at the h~10-21 level, corresponding to mirror displacements below 10-18 m.

I will  review this "noise hunting" effort and give some details about the recent observation of 2 neutron star mergers.

Apart from classical noise (seismic noise, thermal noise...), it was realized as soon as in the late 70s that quantum fluctuations of the light field were responsible for the Standard Quantum Limit, a sensitivity limit that second-generation gravitational-wave interferometers will reach once they operate at their design sensitivity, within a few years. A number of ideas have been considered to beat the SQL: squeezed states of the light field, tailoring the optical response function or taking advantage of the mirror mechanical response to radiation pressure. I will present the first experimental demonstrations of such ideas, either on suspended interferometers or table-top experiments.

Séminaire du LPTMC du mardi 24/10 à 11h à la bibliothèque du LPTHE (couloir 13-14 4ème étage).

David Carpentier (ENS Lyon)

The Chiral Anomaly and Ballistic Transport of Weyl Fermions

The chiral anomaly is a unique property of massless relativistic particles in three dimensions. While the chiral nature of particles was expected to be a conserved property, the breaking of this symmetry was a bizarre property of the associated field theory. The recent focus on materials in which low energy electrons behave as massless relativistic Weyl  particles has opened the possibility to experimentally access consequences on transport of this field theory property. Indeed, an anomalous  contribution to the conductance in the presence of a magnetic field was associated to the presence of the chiral anomaly. In this talk, I will focus on the different regime of ballistic transport of Weyl fermions in small mesoscopic conductors.

I will show how the anomalous transport can be traced back to the presence of anomalous Landau Levels in such a junction, and to the chiral anomaly. I will finally comment on the relation between diffusive and ballistic regimes.

Riccardo Ben Ali Zinati

Etudiant en thèse à la Sissa de Trieste

Functional RG approach to the Potts model

This talk is intended to be a detailed presentation of the nprg approach to the Potts model. I will first introduce the model, its symmetry and a useful representation in terms of the hypertetrahedron (simplex) symmetry group.

I will then exploit this geometric approach to construct the corresponding field theory, i.e. the field theory for an n-component scalar with discrete global symmetry S_(n+1). I finally turn to the implementation of the nprg for the Potts field theory and develop two approximations: an algorithm to compute the beta functions of power interactions for arbitrary n and the LPA for fixed n, both in arbitrary dimension.

I conclude giving some results with particular attention to Percolation and Spanning forest universality classes and draw some perspectives on future possible applications.

reference: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.03410.pdf