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SUMMARY:Topological order in Chiral Liquid Crystals - Ivan Smalyukh (Unive
 rsity of Colorado)
DTSTART:20250820T084500Z
DTEND:20250820T093000Z
UID:TALK234739@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:Feynman's words &ldquo\;What I cannot create\, I do not unders
 tand&rdquo\; inspire us to use the power of topology and chirality to expe
 rimentally re-produce phenomena and "bring to life" theories from diverse 
 fields like particle physics and cosmology. Even physically-sound models t
 hat turned out not describing the real World around us can materialize in 
 the artificial "meta-World" table-top experiments that we meticulously des
 ign. I will first discuss how vortex knots in chiral liquid crystals can e
 xhibit atom-like behavior\, including fusion\, fission and self-assembly i
 nto various crystals (one example shown on a polarizing optical micrograph
  to the right) with giant electrostriction properties. These findings will
  let us admire the beautiful history of the early model of atoms by Lord K
 elvin\, and the origins of matematical knot theory\, as well as the very l
 ast poem by Maxwell related to them. I will discuss how the chiral liquid 
 crystalline topological solitons\, nonsingular vortex knots and multi-comp
 onnt links relate to the modern-day topological models of subatomic partic
 les. Finally\, I will show that the vortices (nonsingular disclinations) i
 n chiral liquid crystals interact with light similar to what was predicted
  for the elusive cosmic strings\, with knots and crystalline arrays of vor
 tices allowing to spatially localize beams of light into closed loops and 
 knots.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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