The effective mass of the Fröhlich polaron at strong coupling

Morris Brooks (U Zurich)

Nov 27. 2025, 11:00 — 11:40

In this talk we investigate the Fröhlich polaron in the strong coupling limit, which is a model describing the interactions of a charged particle, e.g. an electron, with a polarizable environment. Notably, the model is simple enough to allow for rigorous mathematical proofs, while giving rise to a multitude of interesting and non-trivial phenomena, such as an effectively increased mass of the electron. In particular, we will discuss a recent proof concerning the validity of the celebrated Landau-Pekar formula for the effective mass of the Fröhlich polaron at strong couplings, which has been an outstanding open problem in mathematical physics conjectured by Spohn in 1987.

Further Information
Venue:
ESI Boltzmann Lecture Hall
Associated Event:
Quantum Many-body Systems and Bose-Einstein Condensation: A Mathematical Physics Perspective (Workshop)
Organizer(s):
Serena Cenatiempo (Gran Sasso Science Institute, L'Aquila)
Christian Hainzl (LMU Munich)
Robert Seiringer (ISTA, Klosterneuburg)