"Is Strongly Correlated Electron Matter full of Unparticles?"

 

 

ABSTRACT:  

 

I will begin this colloquium by using the standard procedure in condensed matter to count particles.  For strongly correlated models relevant to high-temperature superconductors, I will show that this procedure cannot account for all the charged degrees of freedom.  The charged stuff which is left out cannot be given an interpretation in terms of particles.  I will argue that the unparticle construction of Howard Georgi's makes up the difference.  I will show how a gravity dual can be used to determine the scaling dimension for unparticles.

 

 I will close by elucidating  a possible superconducting instability of unparticles and demonstrate that unparticle stuff is likely to display fractional statistics in the dimensionalities of interest for strongly correlated electron matter.