Seminar

Phase transitions involving topological phases of matter are a rich set of phenomena that often involve an interplay of topology, interactions and disorder. In this colloquium, I will present two such examples that arise in the quantum Hall effect. The first is the extensively studied, yet enigmatic, array of quantum critical points between abelian quantum Hall phases. I will explain how changing one's reference frame to that of an emergent particle, called composite-fermion, can help obtain a unified description of such critical points. In the second example, I will explore a possible continuous transition out of the topologically ordered fractional Quantum Hall State at \nu=7/3 to a spontaneous symmetry breaking state. I will discuss future directions and further examples of such transitions.