下午 15:00

Arguably string theory and quantum matter are the best modern physics has to offer,  in the mathematical- and the empirical realms respectively. But quantum matter is stuck by the lack of mathematical weapons, while string theory is starving for succes in the empirical realms. Remarkably, very recently an exiting case developed that these fields might cure each other problem [1]. The point of contact is the AdS/CFT correspondence relating gravitational physics to that of quantum fields on the string side, and the largely empirical context of metallic quantum critical states of elecron matter. I will tell the wonderful story of how black holes can be used to compute the strange ‘planckian’ dissipative properties of finite temperature quantum critical fluids, and how this relates to the strange capacity  of the same black hole to describe the birth of a heavy Fermi-liquid from a scale-invariant quantum state at shorter distances[2]. 

 [1.] Nature News and Views: http://www.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/~jan/NVblackhole.pdf

 [2.] M. Cubrovic, J. Zaanen and  K. Schalm, Science (in press): http://arxiv.org/pdf/0904.1993