Eduardo H. Fradkin
professor of Physics
Professor Eduardo Fradkin received his Licenciado (master's) degree in physics from Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina) and his PhD in physics from Stanford University in 1979. He came to the University of Illinois in 1979 as a postdoctoral research associate, and became an assistant professor of physics at Illinois in 1981. He was promoted to associate professor in 1984, and became a full professor in 1989. Professor Fradkin is an internationally recognized leader in theoretical physics, who has contributed to many problems at the interface between quantum field theory (QFT) and condensed matter physics (CMP).
In his early work, he pioneered the use of concepts from CMP and statistical physics, such as order parameters and phase diagrams, to problems of QFT and high energy physics. Perhaps his most important result in this area was the proof that when matter fields carry the fundamental unit of charge, the Higgs and confinement phases of gauge theories are smoothly connected to each other and are as different as a liquid is from a gas. This result remains one of the cornerstones of our understanding of the phases of gauge theories and represents a lasting contribution to elementary particle physics.
More recently, Professor Fradkin's unique perspective has allowed him to invoke and apply results from QFT to CMP. He was one of the first theorists to use gauge theory concepts in the theory of spin glasses and to use concepts of chaos and non-linear systems in equilibrium statistical mechanics of frustrated systems. Professor Fradkin has pioneered the application of QFT methods to the physics of correlated disordered electronic systems and the quantum stability of the spontaneously dimerized state of polyacetylene.
Professor Fradkin also pioneered the use of Dirac fermions for CMP problems, particularly in two space dimensions. A prime example is his work on Dirac fermions on random fields (which he began with former graduate student Dr. Matthew Fisher), which is now regarded as the universality class of the transition between quantum Hall plateaus in the integer Hall effect. This work is also important for the description of quasiparticles in disordered d-wave superconductors.
A major achivement of Professor Fradkin's recent research has been the development, in collaboration with former graduate student Dr. Ana Lopez, of the fermion Chern-Simons field theory of the fractional quantum Hall effect. This theory has played a central role in the current research effort in this exciting problem in CMP.
Research Area: theoretical condensed matter physics, disordered and strongly correlated systems, quantum Hall effects, quantum field theory in condensed matter
Recent Publications
Eun-Ah Kim, Lawler, M, Vishveshwara, S, and Fradkin, EH. Signatures of fractional statistics in noise experiments in quantum Hall fluids. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 176402-1 (2005).
Fendley, P and Fradkin, EH. Realizing non-Abelian statistics in time-reversal-invariant systems. Phys. Rev. B 72, 24412-1-8 (2005).
Brown, SE, Fradkin, EH, and Kivelson, SA. Surface pinning of fluctuating charge order: an extraordinary surface phase transition. Phys. Rev. B 71, 224512-1-8 (2005).
Nussinov, Z and Fradkin, EH. Discrete sliding symmetries, dualities, and self-dualities of quantum orbital compass models and p+ip superconducting arrays. Phys. Rev. B 71, 195120-1-9 (2005).
Yang, I, et al. Quantum Hall line junction with impurities as a multislit luttinger liquid interferometer. Phys. Rev. B 71, 113312-1-4 (2005).
Arrigoni, E, EH Fradkin, and S Kivelson. Competition between charge-density waves and superconductivity in striped systems. Proc. of the SCES '04, Intl. Conf. on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems. Univ. Karlsruhe, July 26-30, 2004. Physica B 359-361, 623-625 (2005).
honors and awards
- Fellow, American Physical Society
- Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1998
- Arnold O. Beckman Research Award, University of Illinois Research Board, 2006
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