Piers Coleman, Rutgers University, USA

Dark matter challenges of the solid state

At the turn of the 20th century, physicists faced an uncanny range of
unsolved problems: simple questions, such as why hot objects change
colour, why matter is hard and why the sun keeps on shining, went
unanswered. These problems heralded a new era of quantum physics.
One of the truly remarkable lessons of discovery in this heroic era, was the
intertwined nature of research: in the lab and in the cosmos, for solving
superconductivity really did help answer why the sun keeps on shining, while
looking at the stars provided clues as to why matter is hard.
The challenges facing us today, epitomized by our failure to quantize gravity,
the mysteries of dark matter, energy and quantum information, challenge
physics to its core. I will discuss some less well-known “dark matter
challenges of the solid state”, epitomized by the discovery strange metals
with linear resistivity and strange insulators and superconductors which
appear to exhibit neutral Fermi surfaces. I will argue that laboratory-scale
problems of this ilk challenge our fundamental understanding of matter in
new and intriguing ways.