graduate

Friction, classical and quantum

TYPEColloquium
Speaker:Professor Emil Polturak
Affiliation:Physics, Technion
Date:29.04.2013
Time:14:30 - 15:30
Location:Lidow Rosen Auditorium (323)
Abstract:Friction at the macroscopic scale continues to be a thriving research area,
in accordance with its undisputed importance in our life. At the
microscopic scale, experiments show that in some cases, the friction between
two solid surfaces can be vanishingly small. An open problem is whether
friction between macroscopic bodies can result from quantum fluctuations.
Recent experiments, in which the friction between two slabs of a quantum
solid was actually measured, offer a way to answer this question.