Physics

Prof David Hutchinson
University of Otago, New Zealand

The Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies is a national Centre of Research Excellence in New Zealand. It spans six universities and covers fields from fibre lasers to Bose condensates through to quantum information processing. In this talk I will give a flavour of some of the work being undertaken in New Zealand, with a very personal perspective. In particular I will talk about my work on Bose condensates at finite temperature, especially in reduced dimensions where there is an interesting superfluid phase (the Berezinsky-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase) that can exist in the absence of a phase coherent condensate. I will also talk about disordered systems and the Anderson transition from metal to insulating phases and its simulation in the cold gases. As well as discussing my own research I will highlight opportunities in New Zealand both within my own Centre and in the MacDiarmid Centre for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology which is the other physical sciences Centre of Research Excellence in New Zealand.