January 7 , 2009
3 pm in Howey Physics Room N110

 

Leonid Levitov
Physics Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"Atomic collapse, Lorentz boosts, Klein scattering, and other quantum-relativistic phenomena in graphene"

 

Electrons in graphene, behaving as massless relativistic Dirac particles, provide a new perspective on the relation between condensed matter and high-energy physics. We discuss atomic collapse, a novel state of superheavy atoms stripped of their discrete energy levels, which are transformed into resonant states. Charge impurities in graphene provide a convenient condensed matter system in which this effect can be explored. Relativistic dynamics also manifests itself in another system, graphene p-n junctions. We shall discuss an  unexpected relation between the transport problem in the presence of magnetic field and Lorentz transformations. Finally, we review recent proposal to use Fabry-Perot resonances in p-n-p structures as a vehicle to investigate Klein scattering, another hallmark phenomenon of relativistic dynamics.