Colloquium - Kaden Hazzard, Rice University

Monday 27 Apr 2026, 15:00 → 16:30 US/Eastern

307 (SERF)

15:00 → 15:30 Tea in the Atrium

15:30 → 16:30 Colloquium

Title: A Strange Exchange: Paraparticles and Where to Find Them

Abstract: Particle exchange statistics is a fundamental characteristic of quantum matter, conventionally thought to be constrained to either fermionic or bosonic. Each type gives distinct phenomena: fermions and the consequent exclusion principle lead to the structure of the periodic table and properties of metals, while bosons and their bunching give lasers and superfluidity.

I will discuss recent research in our group that has shown other exchange statistics are possible (beyond already-known anyons, which are restricted to two dimensions) and naturally emerge as excitations in spin models. These “paraparticles” admit non-interacting theories, unlike anyons, and I will describe our vision of using this to form the foundation of new analytic and numerical methods to provide a window into correlated matter.