People

Zhihao obtained his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 2010. There he worked with Prof. Oleg Tchernyshyov on the theory of exotic excitations of the spin-1/2 kagome antiferromagnet. At Waterloo, Zhihao is working on various theoretical problems in the area of frustrated antiferromagnets as well as performing numerical simulations of these systems using variational quantum Monte Carlo methods. Zhihao is also working on a bosonic theory of quantum spin ice, a topical class of systems proposed to display a U(1) spin liquid described by a quantum field theory akin to that of quantum electrodynamics (QED) on the lattice.

Jeff obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2014 where he worked with Prof. Hae-Young Kee on the theoretical modeling of materials with strong spin-orbit interactions such as those proposed to harbor the quantum spin liquid physics of the Kitaev model. Jeff is now working on a number of projects in the area of highly frustrated magnets, including order-by-disorder and unraveling the physics at play in the candidate quantum spin liquid materials Tb₂Ti₂O₇ and Yb₂Ti₂O₇.

Brian obtained his Physics B.Sc. from the University of Guelph in 2014. He enjoys solving physics problems using computational methods. Right now, Brian is studying the nature of the long-range magnetic order in the so-called dipolar kagome ice which arises in spin ice systems when they are subject to a moderate magnetic field.

Victor his a third year student, soon to start his fourth year, in Mathematics & Physics at Université de Montréal. He is presently working on the Hubbard model at half filling on the anisotropic triangular lattice under the support of an NSERC-USRA. He is investigating what the general spin states are in this model and how they might give rise to new phases. We is interested in mathematical methods in various problems in physics, especially in the many-body problem.

Adarsh is in his 3rd year Honors Physics CO-OP degree at the University of Waterloo. His undergraduate research experience includes work on superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors at Harvard University, and on frustrated magnetism and effective spin models at the University of Waterloo. In particular, during the Fall 2014 term, he worked under the support of an NSERC USRA in collaboration with post-doc Jeff Rau on the strong-coupling expansion description of the Hubbard model on frustrated anisotropic lattices. In particular, he studied the t-t’-U triangular Hubbard model, with the aim of deriving an effective spin-1/2 model obtained as an expansion to high order in t/U and t'/U.

Jianying is doing her B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and is currently doing her senior undergrad thesis project in the group. She is using Monte Carlo simulations to study the role of finite-size effects on the correlations and thermodynamic properties of highly-frustrated classical spin systems that display a “classical spin liquid” (i.e. are collective paramagnets).

Saumitran is coming from India to pursue an undergraduate internship in May 2015 supported by the MITACS/GlobaLink program. Saumitran is working on highly-frustrated magnetic systems using the so-called Numerical Linked-Cluster method.