Physics Colloquium: "When a Symmetry Breaks"

Event Type

Seminar/Symposium

Sponsor

Department of Physics

Location

Loomis Lab 141 and via Zoom

Virtual

Date

Nov 13, 2024   4:00 pm  

Speaker

Hitoshi Murayama (Berkeley)

Contact

Kelly Darr

E-Mail

khdarr@illinois.edu

Phone

217-300-7821

Views

262

Originating Calendar

Physics - Colloquium

What is common among a magnet, a flounder, a rack of laundry, your heart on the left of your body, and the Higgs boson? The concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking is ubiquitous among many natural phenomena. I'll describe the basic concept and its applications. In particular, the original concepts from Anderson, Nambu, Goldstone, and Higgs do not quite work in many systems that include a magnet on your fridge. I generalize the concept so that it is applicable to all known natural phenomena around us.