Dear all, Our upcoming AM seminar is held Wed 22 March at 1pm, in F11 Chemistry Lecture Theatre 4. Our speaker is Christof Melcher (RWTH Aachen). Talk details follow below: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Skyrmions and emergent spin orbit coupling in a spherical magnet Abstract: We discuss solitonic field configurations on a spherical magnet. Exploiting the Hamiltonian structure and concepts of angular momentum, we present a new family of localized solutions to the Landau-Lifshitz equation that are topologically distinct from the ground state and break rotational symmetry. The approach illustrates emergent spin-orbit coupling arising from the loss of individual rotational invariance in spin and coordinate space---a common feature of condensed matter systems with topological phases. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An ongoing list of AM seminars is posted here: https://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/SemConf/Applied.html See you there, Ian