When the particles that make up a material are strongly-correlated, we theorists get a run for our money: qualitatively new behaviour emerges and the whole is a lot more than the sum of its parts. The theoretical description of matter in such challenging circumstances benefits from very close interaction with experimentalists. For this reason the University of Kent has set up, as part of the SEPnet collaboration, a small outpost of theorists at the ISIS Facility in the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

At the outpost we address a broad range of problems in the theory of strong correlations, ranging from condensed matter to atomic physics. Various techniques are deployed as the need arises: semiclassics, BCS theory, numerical diagonalisation, Bethe ansatz-based techniques, density functional theory, bosonisation, group theory, variational methods, etc. We often work in close collaboration with experimentalists.

Current research topics include:

* Spontaneous Fermi surface deformations in strongly-correlated quantum matter;
* unconventional pairing in superconductors;
* complementarity between cold atom and condensed matter experiments;
* proximity effect in magnetic nano-structures;
* design of new quantum information-based neutron scattering and cold atoms probes of strongly correlated quantum matter;
* and novel topological excitations in frustrated magnets.