The program includes a large variety of quite different research areas, from quantum fluids and semiconductors to nuclear matter and neutron stars, and allows us to conduct a pioneering enquiry at top international level and keep leadership in certain subfields described below. At the same time the program lies in the domain of the current research activities at the University of Western Australia and is aimed at the stimulation of interdisciplinary collaboration and active interaction between theorists and experimentalists.
Some relevant publications are available.
Quantum Statistics of Charged Particle Systems Dr Heidi Reinholz Coulomb forces between charged particles are somehow the origin of all properties of materials allthough they might appear as collective behaviour described by short-ranged forces. However, we are interested in systems where the interaction of charged particles is the dominant effect. A ferromagnet exchange coupled to an antiferromagnet can display a distinctive shift in the magnetic hysteresis that is called exchange bias. This effect has been known for over forty years, but is not understood to this day. Interestingly, it turns out that the effect is of great current interest for application in devices.