JQI Special Seminar

Abstract: Can a material be made of light? Can quantum mechanics help us measure time? These are two questions in quantum science that I directly address using the tools of atomic physics and quantum optics. We first explore the requirements to make a quantum Hall material made of light. We trap photons inside of a curved-mirror non-planar optical resonator to confine the transverse motion of photons and imbue them with an effective mass and an effective magnetic field for photons.

Recently, there has been remarkable progress towards the development of large-scale quantum devices through advances in quantum science and technology. This progress opens new doors for proof-of-principle demonstrations of quantum simulations as well as practically useful applications, such as quantum-enhanced metrology and quantum networking.

Artificial materials made up of atoms, molecules, and light have opened up exciting opportunities to explore quantum physics in exotic regimes. Through their manipulation with laser light and other fields, ultracold gases of atoms and molecules can be used to study phenomena related to condensed matter, high energy, and nuclear physics, and can furthermore play host to entirely unique kinds of many-body effects.

Learning how to create, study, and manipulate highly entangled states of matter is key to understanding exotic phenomena in condensed matter and high energy physics, as well as to the development of useful quantum computers. In this talk, I will discuss recent experiments where we demonstrated the realization of a quantum spin liquid phase using Rydberg atoms on frustrated lattices and a new architecture based on the coherent transport of entangled atoms through a 2D array.

In the past decade a new technology domain of quantum sound has emerged. Unlike electrical and optical systems, which are governed by fundamental equations of electromagnetism, acoustical and vibrational phenomena are described by the equations of elastic waves in solid bodies. They are subject to different limitations and can reach different regimes of behavior. Sound is different.

The field of Quantum Information is of great excitement in both fundamental physics and industry. One promising platform for quantum computing is gate-defined quantum dots in semiconductors. The greatest limiting factor currently is that delicate quantum states can lose their quantum nature due to interactions with their environment. Other open challenges are to coherently control large-scale spin qubits and develop methods to entangle quantum bits that are separated by significant distances.

Abstract: For quantum computers to achieve their promise, regardless of the qubit technology, significant improvements to both performance and scale are required.  Quantum-dot-based qubits in silicon have recently enjoyed dramatic advances in fabrication and control techniques.  The “exchange-only” modality is of particular interest, as it avoids control elements that are difficult to scale such as microwave fields, photonics, or ferromagnetic gradients.  In this control scheme, the entirety of quantum computation may be performed using only asynchronous, baseband voltage pulses on straig

Abstract: In general, quantum states are very sensitive to coupling to the environment. In many cases this interaction leads to a loss of coherence and a transformation of the quantum mechanical system to classical behavior. However, quantum states can also be stabilized if the environment and the coupling to it are appropriately engineered. This is the basic idea of the research results that I will present in this talk.

Gauge theories are the back-bone of our understanding of nature at the most fundamental level as captured by the standard model. Despite their elegance and conceptual simplicity, gauge theories have historically represented a major computational challenge in many-body theory - including, for instance, the real-time dynamics describing heavy-ion collisions at colliders, which is inaccessible to classical simulations based on Monte Carlo sampling.