THURSDAY, Jan. 31, 12 p.m. 11th floor Gamow Tower
Victor Gurarie
University of Colorado, Boulder
A many particle generalization of the Landau-Zener problem.
An old theorem in quantum mechanics states that if the parameters of a system are changed sufficiently slowly, the system remains in its ground state. However, if the system is large, a natural question is how slow is slow enough. In this talk, I will introduce an interesting many particle system which does not want to stay in its ground state unless its parameters change at an exceedingly slow rate.