These lectures will cover three modern topics in physics: graphene, quantum computation, and Majorana fermions. Graphene is a two-dimensional Dirac material existing in nature where the energy dispersion follows the chiral massless Dirac-Weyl equation. It has very intriguing properties which will be discussed at length. Quantum computation is a new theoretical paradigm for computation where the full power of quantum resources, namely superposition and entanglement, is utilized to solve problems which are beyond the realm of classical computation. Since quantum decoherence is the real enemy of quantum computation with quantum states disappearing rather fast in nature (i.e. before any successful computation could be carried out), a revolutionary new way of carrying out quantum computation uses topological quantum matter where emergent Majorana fermions with non-Abelian anyonic statistics can be braided to create the elementary computation steps. Topology provides the immunity for these Majorana fermions which do not decohere. The lectures will cover quantum computation and will discuss the recent possible discovery of Majorana fermions in semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems.
The following activities have also been organized around these lectures: