The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Dr. Yizhi You an ERC Starting Grant to join the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden. The funding of 1.43 million euros will enable the talented theoretical physicist to establish her own junior research group to investigate novel quantum many-body systems, the so-called "fracton phases of matter", during the next five years.

Yizhi You's project is titled "Fracton: A Window to Topology, Interaction and Constraints." Fracton phases arise from a rich interplay of correlations, symmetry, topology, and dynamics in strongly interacting many-body systems. These exotic phases extend and challenge theorists' existing notions of topological order. The project aims to provide an effective field-theoretic framework to classify, characterize, and simulate different fracton phases to be discovered, as well as to search for potential applications to quantum memory and quantum computing.

In the competition for the prestigious ERC grants, the IFW Dresden have been particularly successful. So far, six ERC Starting Grants, two ERC Advanced Grants and three ERC Consolidator Grants have been awarded to scientists at IFW Dresden. Three of these 11 ERC grants were awarded to women.

About the ERC: The European Research Council is a European institution for funding basic, visionary research. Scientific excellence is the decisive criterion. The ERC Starting Grant funds talented young scientists who already have a record of excellent research and the potential to conduct outstanding research on their own and become leaders in science.

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