Condensed Matter Seminar: Subir Sachdev (Harvard) - SU(2) gauge theory for intertwined orders and hole pockets in the cuprates

Headshot of Subir Sachdev
Mon, March 9, 2026
10:00 am - 11:00 am
1080 Physics Research Building

Condensed Matter Seminar: Subir Sachdev, Harvard University

SU(2) gauge theory for intertwined orders and hole pockets in the cuprates

 

Event Details:

  • Date: March 9, 2026
  • Time: 10:00 - 11:00 AM
  • Location: 1080 Physics Research Building
  • Faculty Host: Mohit Randeria

 

Abstract

The pseuogap phase of the hole-doped cuprates features seemingly incompatible experimental evidence of hole pockets and intertwined charge and superconducting orders from a variety of probes. I will describe a SU(2) lattice gauge theory with a Yukawa coupling between a Higgs boson and electrons and spinons, obtained from an ancilla layer description of the single-band Hubbard model. The intertwined orders appear as distinct gauge-invariant composites of the Higgs field, while the hole pocket is reconstructed from the large Fermi surface by an underlying spin liquid.

 

Bio

Subir Sachdev is Herchel Smith Professor of Physics at Harvard University. He has been elected to national academies of science in India and the US, and the Royal Society in the U.K. He is a recipient of several awards, including the Dirac Medal from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, and the Lars Onsager Prize from the American Physical Society. Sachdev has made extensive contributions to the theory of the diverse varieties of states of quantum matter, and of their behavior near quantum phase transitions.