Quantum mechanical bounds on transport from first principles

Some of most difficult theoretical challenges in strongly-interacting many-body systems are concerned with transport. This involves understanding quantities such as the electric resistivity, the thermal conductivity, the viscosity, spin diffusivity etc. of media as diverse as the quark-gluon plasma, unconventional metals and cold atomic gases. I will argue that a handle on these problems can be gained from understanding fundamental limits on the dynamics of many-body systems imposed by quantum mechanics and statical mechanics themselves. The advantage of this approach is that it does not depend on the presence of weakly interacting quasiparticles.

Abstract  Physikalisches Kolloquium Wintersemester 2018/19