Professor Jan Zaanen,
Stanford- and Leiden University

Quantum liquid crystals and emergent general relativity

The identification of the principles underlying the laws of fundamental physics with emergent phenomena in strongly interacting systems has become a core-business of condensed matter physics. I will present the case that this even applies to Einstein gravity. The context is the study of quantum nematics, a zero temperature form of liquid crystalline order, which might have to do with quantum Hall systems and high Tc superconductors. If these form sufficiently correlated liquids, all one has to do is to impose Lorentz invariance in order to find a medium which is literally indistinguishable from the space-time envisioned by Einstein.