Xiao-Gang Wen

Xiao-Gang Wen
Born (1961-11-26) 26 November 1961
Beijing, China
Residence Canada
Nationality China, United States
Fields Physics
Institutions

Institute for Theoretical Physics, UC Santa Barbara
Institute for Advanced Study
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alma mater University of Science and Technology of China
Princeton University
Doctoral advisor Edward Witten
Known for

Chiral spin liquid [1] Topological order [2] [3] FQH edge states [4] [5] Z2 topological order [6] K-matrix classification of Abelian topological order [7] [8] [9] Non-Abelian FQH states [10] [11] Phase transition beyond symmetry breaking paradigm [12] [13] [14] a SU(2)-theory for high temperature superconductor [15] [16] String-net condensation [17] Projective symmetry group [14] A string-net unification of light and electron [18] [19] Topological entanglement entropy [20] Pattern-of-zeros classification of non-Abelian FQH states [21] [22] Emergent quantum gravity [23] Long range quantum entanglement [24] Group cohomology and symmetry protected topological (SPT) order

[25]

Xiao-Gang Wen (simplified Chinese: 文小刚; traditional Chinese: 文小剛; pinyin: Wen2 Xiao3 Gang1) (born November 26, 1961) is a Chinese-born American physicist. He is a Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His expertise is in condensed matter theory in strongly correlated electronic systems.

He is the author of a book in advanced quantum many-body theory entitled, Quantum Field Theory of Many-body Systems: From the Origin of Sound to an Origin of Light and Electrons (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Wen studied superstring theory under theoretical physicist Edward Witten at Princeton University where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1987. He later switched his research field to condensed matter physics while working with theoretical physicists Robert Schrieffer, Frank Wilczek, Anthony Zee in Institute for Theoretical Physics, UC Santa Barbara (1987–1989).

Wen introduced the notion of topological order (1989)[2][3][26] and quantum order (2002),[14] to describe a new class of matter states. This opens up a new research direction in condensed matter physics. He found that states with topological order contain non-trivial boundary excitations and developed chiral Luttinger theory for the boundary states (1990).[4][5] The boundary states can become ideal conduction channel which may lead to device application of topological phases. He proposed the simplest topological order — Z2 topological order (1990),[6] which turns out to be the topological order in the toric code. He also proposed a special class of topological order: non-Abelian quantum Hall states.[10][11] They contain emergent particles with non-Abelian statistics which generalizes the well known Bose and Fermi statistics. Non-Abelian particles may allow us to perform fault tolerant quantum computations. With Michael Levin, he found that string-net condensations can give rise to a large class of topological orders (2005).[17] In particular, string-net condensation provides a unified origin of photons, electrons, and other elementary particles (2003).[18][19] It unifies two fundamental phenomena: gauge interactions and Fermi statistics. He pointed out that topological order is nothing but the pattern of long range entanglements.[20][24] This led to a notion of symmetry protected topological (SPT) order (short-range entangled states with symmetry) and its description by group cohomology of the symmetry group (2011).[25] The notion of SPT order generalizes the notion of topological insulator to interacting cases. He also proposed the SU(2) gauge theory of high temperature superconductors (1996).

Biography

Education

Professional record

Honors

See also

Publications

  1. ↑ Xiao-Gang Wen, F. Wilczek and A. Zee, Chiral Spin States and Superconductivity, Phys. Rev. B 39 11413 (1989). See also: V. Kalmeyer and R. B. Laughlin, Equivalence of the resonating-valence-bond and fractional quantum Hall states, Phys. Rev. Lett. 59 2095 (1987)
  2. 1 2 Xiao-Gang Wen, Topological Orders in Rigid States, Int. J. Mod. Phys. B4 239 (1990)
  3. 1 2 Xiao-Gang Wen, Topological Orders and Edge Excitations in FQH States, Advances in Physics 44 405 (1995)
  4. 1 2 Xiao-Gang Wen, Gapless Boundary Excitations in the FQH States and in the Chiral Spin States, Phys. Rev. B 43 11025 (1991)
  5. 1 2 Xiao-Gang Wen, Theory of the Edge Excitations in FQH effects, Int. J. Mod. Phys. B6 1711 (1992)
  6. 1 2 Xiao-Gang Wen, Mean Field Theory of Spin Liquid States with Finite Energy Gaps and topological orders, Phys. Rev. B 44 2664 (1991). See also: N. Read and Subir Sachdev, Large-N expansion for frustrated quantum antiferromagnets, Phys. Rev. Lett. 66 1773 (1991)
  7. ↑ B. Blok and Xiao-Gang Wen, Effective theories of Fractional Quantum Hall Effect at Generic Filling Fractions, Phys. Rev. B 42 8133 (1990)
  8. ↑ B. Blok and Xiao-Gang Wen, Effective theories of Fractional Quantum Hall Effect: Hierarchical Construction, Phys. Rev. B 42 8145 (1990). See also: N. Read, Excitation structure of the hierarchy scheme in the fractional quantum Hall effect, Phys. Rev. Lett. 65 1502 (1990)
  9. ↑ Xiao-Gang Wen and A. Zee, A Classification and Matrix Formulation of the abelian FQH states, Phys. Rev. B 46 2290 (1992)
  10. 1 2 Xiao-Gang Wen, Non-Abelian Statistics in the FQH states, Phys. Rev. Lett. 66 802 (1991). See also: G. Moore and N. Read, Nucl. Phys. B 360 362 (1991)
  11. 1 2 Xiao-Gang Wen, Topological order and edge structure of nu=1/2 quantum Hall state, Phys. Rev. Lett. 70 355 (1993)
  12. ↑ Xiao-Gang Wen and Y.-S. Wu, Transitions between the quantum Hall states and insulators induced by periodic potentials, Phys. Rev. Lett. 70 1501 (1993)
  13. ↑ Xiao-Gang Wen, Continuous topological phase transitions between clean quantum Hall states, cond-mat/9908394, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 3950 (2000)
  14. 1 2 3 Xiao-Gang Wen, Quantum Orders and Symmetric Spin Liquids, cond-mat/0107071, Phys. Rev. B 65 165113 (2002)
  15. ↑ Xiao-Gang Wen and P. A. Lee, Theory of Underdoped Cuprates, cond-mat/9506065, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76 503 (1996)
  16. ↑ Patrick A. Lee, Naoto Nagaosa, Xiao-Gang Wen, Doping a Mott Insulator: Physics of High Temperature Superconductivity, cond-mat/0410445, Rev. Mod. Phys. 78 17-85 (2006)
  17. 1 2 Michael Levin, Xiao-Gang Wen, String-net condensation: A physical mechanism for topological phases, cond-mat/0404617, Phys. Rev. B 71 045110 (2005)
  18. 1 2 Michael Levin, Xiao-Gang Wen, Fermions, strings, and gauge fields in lattice spin models, cond-mat/0302460, Phys. Rev. B 67 245316 (2003)
  19. 1 2 Xiao-Gang Wen, Quantum order from string-net condensations and origin of light and massless fermions, hep-th/0302201, Phys. Rev. D 68 065003 (2003)
  20. 1 2 Michael Levin and Xiao-Gang Wen, Detecting Topological Order in a Ground State Wave Function, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 110405 (2006). See also: Alexei Kitaev and John Preskill, Topological Entanglement Entropy, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 110404 (2006).
  21. ↑ Xiao-Gang Wen and Zhenghan Wang, Classification of symmetric polynomials of infinite variables: Construction of Abelian and non-Abelian quantum Hall states, arXiv:0801.3291, Phys. Rev. B 77 235108 (2008)
  22. ↑ Xiao-Gang Wen and Zhenghan Wang, Topological properties of Abelian and non-Abelian quantum Hall states from the pattern of zeros, arXiv:0803.1016, Phys. Rev. B 78 155109 (2008); arXiv:1203.3268.
  23. ↑ Zheng-Cheng Gu and Xiao-Gang Wen, Emergence of helicity +/- 2 modes (gravitons) from qbit models , arXiv:0907.1203. Nucl. Phys. B 863 90 (2012)
  24. 1 2 Chen, Xie, Zheng-Cheng Gu, and Xiao-Gang Wen. Local unitary transformation, long-range quantum entanglement, wave function renormalization, and topological order. Phys. Rev. B 82, 155138 (2010); arXiv:1004.3835
  25. 1 2 Xie Chen, Zheng-Xin Liu, Xiao-Gang Wen, 2D symmetry protected topological orders and their protected gapless edge excitations Phys. Rev. B 84, 235141 (2011); arXiv:1106.4752. Xie Chen, Zheng-Cheng Gu, Zheng-Xin Liu, Xiao-Gang Wen, Symmetry protected topological orders and the group cohomology of their symmetry group arXiv:1106.4772.
  26. ↑ Xiao-Gang Wen, Vacuum degeneracy of chiral spin states in compactified space, Phys. Rev. B 40, 7387 (1989)

Other publications:

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