The Mesoscopic Relativity Workshop 2015

The remarkable research activities on graphene and related materials have drawn considerable attraction to relativistic effects on quantum transport in mesoscopic and nanoscale systems. The discovery of topological materials including topological insulators and Weyl semimetals have prompt even more attention to the physical effects of special relativity which are known to be very difficult to observe experimentally with elementary particles in high-energy physics. Nevertheless most of the efforts have been focused on the special relativity effects, especially, the effects concerning the linear dispersion of the bands. It should be possible and indeed demanded to observe the general relativity effects such as Unruh effect, which is closely related to the Hawking radiation around black holes.

Through this annual mini-workshop we are trying to make collaborative efforts to study various special and general relativity effects on quantum transport in mesoscopic systems. The relevant physical systems include topological insulators, Dirac/Weyl semimetals, and other materials whose dispersion are Lorentz invariant.

The mini-workshop is maintained by the three groups lead by

• Mahn-Soo Choi in Seoul,
• Xi Dai in Beijing
• Sun-Qing Shen in Hong Kong
• Xin Wan in Hangzhou

The present event will be held at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing, China.