"Composite fermions and fractional quantum Hall effect: 

                                           The magical beauty of emergence " 


Abstract

It is perhaps surprising that we can make any progress at all in understanding the behavior of a collection of a large number of interacting particles, given that even the problem of three interacting particles resists exact solution. The trick is to guess, guided by experiment, the emergent principles. This talk will address the amazing phenomenon of the fractional quantum Hall effect and show how the emergence of topological particles called composite fermions provides a unified explanation for it, while also revealing a treasure trove of new phenomena. I will also report on recent progress, including the development of a density functional theory for the fractional quantum Hall effect, and mention open problems and future directions.