Jan Zaanen (born 17 April 1957) is professor of
theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
at
Leiden University, the Netherlands. He is best known for his contributions to the understanding of the quantum physics of the electrons in
strongly correlated material, and in particular
high temperature superconductivity. Zaanen's areas of interest are in the search for novel forms of collective
quantum phenomena realized in systems build from mundane constituents like
electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,
and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no ...
s,
spins
The spins (as in having "the spins")Diane Marie Leiva. ''The Florida State University College of Education''Women's Voices on College Drinking: The First-Year College Experience"/ref> is an adverse reaction of intoxication that causes a state of ...
, and
atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, ...
s.
He introduced the so-called Zaanen-Sawatzky-Allen diagram, the
LDA+U band structure method and he became particularly well known for his discovery of the stripe instability of the doped
Mott insulator
Mott insulators are a class of materials that are expected to conduct electricity according to conventional band theories, but turn out to be insulators (particularly at low temperatures). These insulators fail to be correctly described by band ...
. His present research is focused on the
quantum critical point
A quantum critical point is a point in the phase diagram of a material where a continuous phase transition takes place at absolute zero. A quantum critical point is typically achieved by a continuous suppression of a nonzero temperature phase ...
and unconventional phases of quantum matter. He is a well-known proponent of the application of
Holographic principle
The holographic principle is an axiom in string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region — such as a ...
to condensed matter physics. He is also well known for his many editorial contributions to the journals ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
'' and ''
Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
''. He is currently on the board of reviewing editors of the latter journal and also editor of the ''
Journal of High Energy Physics''.
Career
Jan Zaanen was born on 17 April 1957 in Leiden. He received his degree in
chemistry with
honours
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...
in 1982 at the
University of Groningen
The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is th ...
, where he also received his doctorate four years later, again with honours. He was under supervision with
Spinoza Prize
The Spinoza Prize ( nl, Spinozapremie) is an annual award of 2.5 million euro, to be spent on new research given by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The award is the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. It is named after the philosopher ...
winner
George Sawatzky. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the
Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research
The Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung'') was founded in 1969 and is one of the 82 Max Planck Institutes of the Max Planck Society. It is located on a campus in Stuttgart, togeth ...
in
Stuttgart, he worked for some years as a researcher at
AT&T Bell Laboratories in the USA. In 1993 Zaanen returned to the Netherlands, where he worked at
Leiden University as a Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) fellow. He has been a professor at Leiden since 2000. Furthermore, in 2004 he was appointed as a visiting professor for one year at
Stanford University.
In 2004-2005 he spent a year at
Stanford University sponsored by the
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...
and in 2006 he received the
Spinoza Prize
The Spinoza Prize ( nl, Spinozapremie) is an annual award of 2.5 million euro, to be spent on new research given by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The award is the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. It is named after the philosopher ...
, the "Dutch Nobel prize", for his scientific accomplishments. Recently Zaanen is one of the driving forces behind the scientific cooperation between the fields of
string theory and
high-temperature superconductivity
High-temperature superconductors (abbreviated high-c or HTS) are defined as materials that behave as superconductors at temperatures above , the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The adjective "high temperature" is only in respect to previou ...
. In an interview with Dutch newspaper, ''De Volkskrant'', he stated:
After winning the Spinoza Prize, it was no longer necessary to worry whether I was proving myself enough. You start looking at things you really like. Furthermore I wanted to prove that I was not too old to learn new things. String theory really is another ballgame than the rest of physics] and I'm proud that I was able to learn it.
Zaanen was a visiting professor of Theoretical Physics at the
Ecole Normale Superieur, Paris, France. In 2012 and 2013 he respectively was a Solvay Professor of Physics at the Solvay Institute, Brussels, Belgium and a fellow of the
Newton Centre
Newton Centre is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The main commercial center of Newton Centre is a triangular area surrounding the intersections of Beacon Street, Centre St ...
at the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
. At present he is Professor of
theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
at Leiden University.
![Spinoza Prize winners 2006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Spinoza_Prize_winners_2006.jpg)
Since 2012 Zaanen is member of the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
High-temperature superconductivity
Recently Zaanen is known for his contribution to the understanding of
high-temperature superconductivity
High-temperature superconductors (abbreviated high-c or HTS) are defined as materials that behave as superconductors at temperatures above , the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The adjective "high temperature" is only in respect to previou ...
. In most high-temperature superconductors the copper atoms are arranged in thin layers. Each atom has its own magnetic field which is opposite to that of its neighbor. Electrons can scarcely move in such an environment, as they are also magnetic. Recently, Zaanen and colleagues Cubrovic and Schalm applied
string theory to explain a physical phenomenon. Initially their use of
string theory attracted a lot of criticism.
[Woit, Pete]
Not Even Wrong
Math.columbia.edu. Retrieved on 2012-07-11.[Smolin, Lee]
The Trouble With Physics
Thetroublewithphysics.com. Retrieved on 2012-07-11. However, in recent years an increasing amount of experimental evidence has been collected in its favor. Its latest accomplishment is the development of the
AdS/CFT correspondence
In theoretical physics, the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, sometimes called Maldacena duality or gauge/gravity duality, is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter s ...
theory, sometimes called Maldacena duality or gauge/gravity duality.
Once it was realised that AdS/CFT could be applied to a broader spectrum of physical phenomena, Zaanen was inspired to use these ideas for his own area of High-temperature superconductivity. Zaanen stated:
"It has always been assumed that once you understand this quantum-critical state, you can also understand high temperature super-conductivity. But, although the experiments produced a lot of information, we hadn't the faintest idea of how to describe this phenomenon. We hadn't expected it to work so well, the maths was a perfect fit; it was superb. When we saw the calculations, at first we could hardly believe it, but it was right."
Other areas of involvement
*
General relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...
and string theory
*
Fermion minus sign problem
*Stripe microscopy and Stripe fractionalisation
*Geometrical order in
Luttinger liquid
A Luttinger liquid, or Tomonaga–Luttinger liquid, is a theoretical model describing interacting electrons (or other fermions) in a one-dimensional conductor (e.g. quantum wires such as carbon nanotubes). Such a model is necessary as the commo ...
s
*Duality in
quantum elasticity: quantum liquid crystals and cosmology
*
Quantum criticality
A quantum critical point is a point in the phase diagram of a material where a continuous phase transition takes place at absolute zero. A quantum critical point is typically achieved by a continuous suppression of a nonzero temperature phase tr ...
Recent publications
*A. Mesaros, K. Fujita, H. Eisaki, J.C. Davis, S. Sachdev, J. Zaanen, E.-A. Kim and M. Lawler, How topological defects couple the smectic and nematic electronic structure of the cuprate pseudogap states, Science, 426 (2011).
*R.J. Slager, A. Mesaros, V. Juricic and J. Zaanen, The space group classification of topological band-insulators, Nature Physics, 98 (2013).
*Y. Liu, K. Schalm, Y.-W. Sun and J. Zaanen, Lattice potentials in holographic non Fermi-liquids: hybridizing local quantum criticality, Journal of High Energy Physics, 036 (2012).
*J. Zaanen, Holographic duality: stealing dimensions from metals, Nature Physics 9, 609 (2013)
*L. Rademaker, Y. Pramudya, J. Zaanen and V. Dobrosavljevic, Influence of long-range interactions on charge ordering phenomena on a square lattice, Physical Review E 88, 032121 (2013)
*L. Rademaker, J. van den Brink, H. Hilgenkamp and J. Zaanen, Enhancement of spin propagation due to interlayer exciton condensation, Physical Review B 88, 121101(R) (2013)
*A.J. Beekman, K. Wu, V. Cvetkovic and J. Zaanen, Deconfining the rotational Goldstone mode: the superconducting quantum liquid crystal in 2+1 dimensions, Physical Review B 88, 024121(2013)
References
External links
Articlefrom Startpagina Universiteit Leiden
Articlefrom
Science magazine
''Science'', also widely referred to as ''Science Magazine'', is the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and one of the world's top academic journals.
It was first published in 1880, ...
Article from Science Daily
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zaanen, Jan
1957 births
20th-century Dutch physicists
Academic staff of Leiden University
Living people
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
People from Leiden
Spinoza Prize winners
Theoretical physicists
University of Groningen alumni
21st-century Dutch physicists
Fellows of the American Physical Society