The Theme

Dear Has,

BAB's philosophy is that as a graduate student, one must make contributions to as many topics as humanly possible, within one broad theme (with BAB, the theme is topological phases). This is not only to make a nice resume, it is also to give as broad an education as possible to a graduate student, so that he/she is in a better position to choose his/her specialization after. 
More specifically, BAB wants his students to contribute to

1) non-interacting theory of topological phases, for example the crystalline topological insulator I described in the meeting

2) interacting topological phases, for example, the model wavefunctions that YL was talking about for the fractional Chern insulators, which are strongly interacting

3) experimental predictions, e.g. the Landau levels of mirror-symmetry PbSnTe, which I may talk about on monday

4) proposals for materials which realize topological phases

5) more high-brow mathematical stuff; CF will give a talk on monday that will give you a flavor of this