Material low-temperature properties can be predicted from its symmetry
Friday, May 31, 2013 - 07:00
in Physics & Chemistry
A sphere looks the same no matter how it is rotated. Squash it on one side, however, and this symmetry is broken. A similar change from a high-symmetry state to a low-symmetry state defines many phase transitions in solids such as magnetic ordering, superconductivity and crystallization. By solving a long-standing problem in theoretical physics, Yoshimasa Hidaka of the Quantum Hadron Physics Laboratory at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science has now developed a general theory that allows the low-temperature properties of such systems to be predicted from their symmetries.