Physics & Astronomy Myriam Sarachik, City College of New York: “SURPRISE: Just Because You Think You’re Heading Toward a Quantum Phase Transition Does Not Mean You Will Get There”

Measurements of the Hall coefficient, resistivity, magnetoresistance, magnetic response and thermopower in two-dimensional strongly interacting electron systems have established that, contrary to expectations, a metal-insulator transition occurs at a critical electron density nc and a metallic phase exists in 2-D. One intriguing mystery has been that, by contrast with the dramatic divergences that have been observed for all other physical properties, the magnetoresistance has exhibited smooth and uneventful behavior approaching and crossing nc.

In this talk, I will present new data and a different new analysis of the magnetoresistance of the strongly interacting 2-D electron system in a silicon MOSFET for a broad range of electron densities. Our surprising results should trigger a re-examination of past work.