Complexity in Strongly Correlated Electronic Systems

A wide variety of experimental results and theoretical investigations in recent years have convincingly demonstrated that several transition metal oxides and other materials have dominant states that are not spatially homogeneous. This occurs in cases in which several physical interactions-spin, charge, lattice, and/or orbital-are simultaneously active. This phenomenon causes interesting effects, such as colossal magnetoresistance, and it also appears crucial to understand the high-temperature superconductors. The spontaneous emergence of electronic nanometer-scale structures in transition metal oxides, and the existence of many competing states, are properties often associated with complex matter where…