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SUMMARY:From Materials to Cosmology: Studying the early universe under the
  microscope - Prof. Dr. Nicola Spaldin\, ETH Zürich
DTSTART:20150122T141500Z
DTEND:20150122T151500Z
UID:TALK54091@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Gareth Conduit
DESCRIPTION:What happened in the early universe just after the Big Bang? T
 his is one of the most intriguing basic questions in all of science\, but 
 it is extraordinarily difficult to answer because of insurmountable issues
  associated with replaying the Big Bang in the laboratory. One route to th
 e answer -- which lies at the intersection between cosmology and materials
  physics -- is to use laboratory materials to test the so-called "Kibble-Z
 urek" scaling laws proposed for the formation of defects such as cosmic st
 rings in the early universe. Here I will show that a popular multiferroic 
 material -- with its coexisting magnetic\, ferroelectric and structural ph
 ase transitions -- generates the crystallographic equivalent of cosmic str
 ings. I will describe how straightforward solution of the Schroedinger equ
 ation for the material allows the important features of its behavior to be
  identified and quantified\, and present experimental results of the first
  unambiguous demonstration of Kibble-Zurek scaling in real materials. 
LOCATION:TCM Seminar Room\, Cavendish Laboratory
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