Barry Bradlyn

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• View my full Publication list on arXiv

Biography

Professor Bradlyn received his bachelor's degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009. He went on to receive his Ph.D. from Yale University in 2015, under the supervision of Nicholas Read. His thesis research focused on linear response and Berry phases in the fractional quantum Hall effect. His primary contributions was the development of a formalism for computing the viscoelastic and thermal response functions for two dimensional Topological phases.

From 2015 to 2018, Professor Bradlyn held a postdoctoral research position at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, where he studied the role of crystal symmetries in topological insulators and semimetals. He predicted the existence of topologically charged, multiply degenerate fermions in weakly interacting crystals with no known analogue in high energy physics. Additionally, he developed a real-space formulation of topological band theory, allowing for the prediction of many new topological insulators and semimetals.

Professor Bradlyn joined the physics department at the University of Illinois in 2018.

Research Statement

One of the most exciting developments in condensed matter physics over the last thirty years has been the discovery of topological phases of matter. Under the broadest possible definition, a system is in a topological phase if there is a gap in its bulk spectrum. Of course, such a definition describes any ordinary thermal or electrical insulator. The key theoretical breakthrough was the realization that not all insulators are created equal. In fact, given a model for an insulating system, there exist certain numerical invariants - topological quantum numbers - that we can compute in order to distinguish between different possible topological phases. These invariants vanish for most ordinary insulators (strictly speaking, they take the same values as in the vacuum) - they are "topologically trivial". The distinguishing feature of such topological invariants is that they depend on the global structure of the system under consideration; topological phases are not locally ordered like magnets or solids. Consequently, systems in nontrivial topological phases are host to a wide range of exotic phenomena, from quantized transport coefficients to fractional bulk excitations that harbor the potential to allow for fault tolerant quantum computation.

Since this initial discovery, the influence of topology has spread across all areas of condensed matter physics. It is this--in addition to individual realizations of topological phases--that is in my opinion the biggest boon of this new paradigm. Topology now stands alongside abstract algebra (as it pertains, for instance, to symmetry groups) as one of our main tools for exploring quantum phenomena in solids and liquids. Broadly speaking, the goal of my research is to marry ideas from these two areas in order to study new phenomena in condensed matter. Currently, I am focusing on the following main topics:

1. Viscous and optical response of topological insulators and semimetals

2. Magnetic topological materials

3. Crystal symmetry protected topological phenomena

Research Interests

• symmetry protected topological semimetals
• geometric response in condensed matter
• Quantum Hall effect
• topological insulators

Selected Articles in Journals

• C. Devescovi, A. Morales-P�rez, Y. Hwang, M. Garc�a-D�ez, I. Robredo, J. L. Ma�es, B. Bradlyn, A. Garc�a-Etxarri, M. G. Vergniory, "Axion Topology in Photonic Crystal Domain Walls," Nature Communications 15, 6814 (2024).
• R. C. McKay, F. Mahmood, B. Bradlyn, "Spatially Inhomogeneous Linear and Nonlinear Electromagnetic Response in Periodic Solids: A General Approach," Phys. Rev. X 14, 011058 (2024).
• K.-S. Lin, G. Palumbo, Y. Hwang, Z. Guo, J. Blackburn, D. P. Shoemaker, F. Mahmood, Z. Wang, G. A. Fiete, B. J. Wieder, and B. Bradlyn, "Spin-Resolved Topology and Partial Axion Angles in Three-Dimensional Insulators," Nat. Commun. 15, 550 (2024).
• D. Manning-Coe, B. Bradlyn, "Ground state stability, symmetry, and degeneracy in Mott insulators with long range interactions," Phys. Rev. B 108, 165136 (2023).
• L. Elcoro, B. J. Wieder, Z. Song, Y. Xu, B. Bradlyn, B. A. Bernevig, "Magnetic Topological Quantum Chemistry," Nat. Commun. 12, 5965 (2021).
• N. B.M. Schroeter, S. Stolz, K. Manna, F. de Juan, M. G. Vergniory, J. A. Krieger, D. Pei, P. Dudin, T. K. Kim, C. Cacho, B. Bradlyn, H. Borrmann, M. Schmidt, R. Widmer, V. Strokov, C. Felser, "Observation and manipulation of maximal Chern numbers in the chiral topological semimetal PdGa," Science 369, 179-183 (2020).
• P. Rao and Barry Bradlyn, "Hall viscosity in quantum systems with discrete symmetry: point group and lattice anisotropy," Phys. Rev. X 10, 021005 (2020).
• B. J. Wieder, Z. Wang, J. Cano, X. Dai, L. M. Schoop, B. Bradlyn, B. .Bernevig, "Strong and Fragile Topological Dirac Semimetals with Higher-Order Fermi Arcs," Nat. Commun. 11, 627 (2020).
• J. Gooth, B. Bradlyn, S. Honnali, C. Schindler, N. Kumar, J. Noky, Y. Qi, C. Shekhar, Y. Sun, Z. Wang, B. A. Bernevig, and C. Felser, "Axionic charge density wave in the Weyl semimetal (TaSe₄)₂I," Nature 575, 315-319 (2019).
• B. Offertaler and B. Bradlyn, "Viscoelastic response of quantum Hall fluids in a tilted field," Phys. Rev. B 99, 035427 (2019).
• B. J. Wieder, B. Bradlyn, Z. Wang, J. Cano, Y. Kim, H.-S. D. Kim, A. M. Rappe, C. L. Kane, and B. A. Bernevig, "Wallpaper fermions and the nonsymmorphic Dirac insulator," Science 361, 246--251 (2018).
• L. Elcoro, B. Bradlyn, Z. Wang, M. G. Vergniory, J. Cano, C. Felser, B. A. Bernevig, D. Orobengoa, G. de la Flor, and M. I. Aroyo, "Double crystallographic groups and their representations on the Bilbao Crystallographic Server," J. Appl. Cryst. 50, 1457-1477 (2017).
• B. Bradlyn, L. Elcoro, J. Cano, M. G. Vergniory, Z. Wang, C. Felser, M. I. Aroyo, and B. A. Bernevig, "Topological quantum chemistry," Nature 547, 298-305 (2017).
• A. Gromov, S. D. Geraedts, and B. Bradlyn, "Investigating anisotropic quantum Hall states with bi-metric geometry," Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 146602 (2017).
• B. Bradlyn, J. Cano, Z. Wang, M. G. Vergniory, C. Felser, R. J. Cava, and B. A. Bernevig, "Beyond Dirac and Weyl fermions: Unconventional quasiparticles in conventional crystals," Science 353, aaf5037 (2016).