Speaker: J. A. Sauls
Hearne Institute of Theoretical Physics
Louisiana State University
September 27, 2024
The Left Hand of the Electron in a Chiral Vacuum
Abstract: Just over sixty-five years ago parity violation by the weak force was demonstrated in experiments led by C. S. Wu on the asymmetry of electron currents emitted in the beta decay of polarized 60Co. The asymmetry reflects two broken symmetries - mirror refelction and time-reversal. That same year Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer published their celebrated theory of superconductivity, and soon thereafter Philip Anderson and Pierre Morel proposed that the ground-state of liquid 3He was likely a BCS condensate of chiral p-wave Cooper pairs, exhibiting spontaneously broken mirror reflection and time-reversal symmetries. Indeed the high-pressure phase, superfluid 3He-A, discovered in 1972, is the realization of the Anderson-Morel state. Definitive proof that 3He-A spontaneously breaks mirror and time-reversal symmetry came 41 years later with the observation an anomalous Hall effect for electrons moving in superfluid 3He-A.1 I discuss this discovery and the theory of the anomalous Hall effect for electrons moving in the chiral phase of 3He.2 I explain the origin of the transverse force on an electron moving in the chiral vacuum, and discuss implications of this theory, and its extension, to anomalous Hall transport for the broad class of chiral superconductors.3
1.
H. Ikegami, Y. Tsutsumi, & K. Kono,
Chiral Symmetry in Superfluid 3He-A,
Science, 341,59-62, 2013.
2.
O. Shevtsov & J. A. Sauls,
Electrons & Weyl Fermions in Superfluid 3He-A,
Phys. Rev. B, 94, 064511, 2016.
3.
V. Ngampruetikorn & J. A. Sauls, Anomalous Hall Effects in Chiral Superconductors,
Front. Phys. 12, 1384275 (2024)
The research of JAS was supported in part by NSF Grant DMR-1508730.
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