Ben Simons

In Plain English

In the search for new fundamental physical phenomena, the attention of the media is naturally drawn to the LHC or the Hubble space telescope. Yet the most unexpected and "exotic" physical phenomena are often grounded in the "terrestrial world". Since the formulation of electrodynamics and quantum mechanics nearly a century ago, our understanding of the fundamental interactions that characterize ions and electrons has been complete. Yet experience shows that the phase behaviour of statistical ensembles of such interacting particles may be very different from the properties of their isolated constituents. In condensed matter theory, we are interested in predicting new collective phase behaviours that can emerge through interaction effects. Our targets are diverse, ranging from the study of correlated metals, insulators, and ultracold atomic gases, to the biology of cellular and subcellular systems. Yet our tools of quantum and classical field theory expose the rich network of connections that unify seemingly diverse physical phenomena.