【T. D. Lee Colloquium No. 33】Many-fermion quantum entanglement in strange metals and black holes

by Prof. Subir Sachdev (Harvard University)

Friday 26 Jun 2026, 14:00 → 15:00 Asia/Shanghai

Tsung-Dao Lee Institute/S5F-S500 - Lecture Hall (Tsung-Dao Lee Institute)

Host: Prof. Hong Ding (丁洪）

Abstract:
Quantum entanglement among many fermions lies at the heart of several frontier problems in modern physics. The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model provides a solvable setting in which strong, all-to-all entanglement produces a non-quasiparticle state with no particle-like excitations and exhibits universal "Planckian" dissipation. I will discuss how insights from the SYK model are informing our understanding of the strange metal phase in cuprate high-temperature superconductors and other quantum materials. Strikingly, these same ideas have also guided recent progress in determining the low-energy quantum density of states of charged and rotating black holes, revealing deep connections between strongly correlated matter and quantum gravity.

Bio:
Subir Sachdev is Herchel Smith Professor of Physics at Harvard University. He attended the Indian Institute to Technology, Delhi, and completed his studies in the US. 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.