David Abergel

As quantum technologies — such as quantum computers, pictured — get closer to widespread commercial application, industry will require a workforce that understands the principles of quantum mechanics and is equipped to apply them. However, questions remain about whether current students have both the access to relevant education and an understanding that this is a possible career path for them. Now, two papers published in Physical Review Physics Education Research investigate these two issues.

The duo’s fundamental result is that the energy gap — called a band gap — for the bulk states must be less than or equal to some material-dependent constants, such as the density of electrons, multiplied by the inverse of the Chern number. The Chern number is the topological invariant of the ground state, the quantum equivalent of the genus of three-dimensional shapes in real space.