Viscosity of Strongly Interacting Fermions – Mohit Randeria

Date: Thu. February 16th, 2012, 4:15 pm-5:15 pm
Location: Rockefeller 301

The viscosity of strongly interacting quantum fluids has recently been examined in diverse areas of physics – black holes and string theory, quark-gluon plasmas and cold atoms – which, at first sight, appear to have little in common. In this colloquium, I will focus on the viscosity of ultracold Fermi gases, for which the most controlled experiments should be possible. I will begin with an introduction to the problem of viscosity of quantum systems and a review of the theoretical and experimental progress in exploring the BCS-BEC crossover of ultracold Fermi gases. I will then discuss connections between transport and thermodynamics across the entire crossover using exact sum rules, and end with implications for the strongly interacting unitary regime.