Carusotto, Iacopo

Date:   Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Time:   14:00
Place:   ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HPF G 6
Host:    Ataç İmamoğlu

Strongly correlated quantum fluids of light

Iacopo Carusotto
Università di Trento, Italy

In this talk I will review the recent advances in the theoretical and experimental study of quantum fluids of light. This novel form of quantum matter consists of assemblies of photons that display collective many-body effects as a result of the optical nonlinearity of the underlying material.
I will start with a brief survey of early results on Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluid hydrodynamical effects with an emphasis on those non-equilibrium features and non-equilibrium phase transitions that originate from the intrinsically driven-dissipative nature of optical systems and on the interplay of condensation effects with non-trivial band topologies.
I will then present the on-going challenge of using quantum fluids of light to generate strongly correlated states of matter such as Mott insulators or fractional quantum Hall fluids of light in a completely new non-equilibrium framework. The main challenges and the potential of optical systems in this direction will be highlighted, with a special emphasis on connection to the growing field of topological photonics and synthetic magnetism.