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Maissam Barkeshli

Associate Professor

Fellow
Profile photo of Maissam Barkeshli

Contact Information

UMD

Email:
maissam@umd.edu

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Research Groups

Recent Publications

Recent News

  • An array of black and white dots are connected by lines forming a chaotic network. A woman balances on one foot on one of the dots.

    Nobel Prize Celebrates Interplay of Physics and AI

    October 11, 2024

    On Tuesday, the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton for their foundational discoveries and inventions that have enabled artificial neural networks to be used for machine learning—a widely used form of AI. The award highlights how the field of physics is intertwined with neural networks and the field of AI.

  • eight fractal butterfly-like plots

    Crystal Imperfections Reveal Rich New Phases of Familiar Matter

    July 14, 2023

    Matter is often classified into familiar phases: solid, liquid, and gas. But the traits that define those phases are not the only properties of matter that matter. Sometimes physicists use other paradigms, like mathematically defined topological traits. Theorists at JQI have revealed a host of possible topological phases that become apparent when two different kinds of defects develop in crystals, or when they study the twirling properties of the electronic arrangement.

  • a depiction of quantum particles undergoing five different selection of random quantum processes

    Tug-of-War Unlocks Menagerie of Quantum Phases of Matter

    January 25, 2022

    Often when physicists study phases of matter they examine how a solid slab of metal or a cloud of gas changes as it gets hotter or colder. Sometimes the changes are routine—we’ve all boiled water to cook pasta and frozen it to chill our drinks. Other times the transformations are astonishing, like when certain metals get cold enough to become superconductors or a gas heats up and breaks apart into a glowing plasma soup. However, changing the temperature is only one way to transmute matter into different phases. Scientists also blast samples with strong electric or magnetic fields or place them in special chambers and dial up the pressure. In these experiments, researchers are hunting for a stark transition in a material’s behavior or a change in the way its atoms are organized. In a new paper published recently in the journal Physical Review Letters, Barkeshli and two colleagues continued this tradition of exploring how materials respond to their environment. But instead of looking for changes in conductivity or molecular structure, they focused on changes in a uniquely quantum property: entanglement, or the degree to which quantum particles give up their individuality and become correlated with each other.