Quantum Simulation

Project 4:

Some quantum systems can be exquisitely well controlled in experiments, whereas others are essentially ‘black boxes’. We use the flexibility in controlling the first sort of systems to unlock the secrets of the second.

Project leaders: Tilman Esslinger, Jonathan P. Home

Members: Johann Blatter, Christoph Bruder, Tilman Esslinger, Jonathan P. Home, Andreas Wallraff

Materials, engineered systems and theoretical models are notoriously difficult to study and understand when quantum-mechanical effects govern their behaviour. A central reason for this is that complexity of a quantum system increases drastically with the number interacting particles involved, limiting how well its properties and behaviour can be predicted. A unique approach to studying complex quantum systems is quantum simulation, where the quantum system of interest is emulated using one that can be precisely controlled and manipulated.

In this project, we work towards attaining a deeper understanding of quantum many-body systems by exploiting and further developing several experimental platforms, building on advances during the first two phases of NCCR QSIT. Our approach involving multiple experimental systems not only enables a direct comparison of the physics on different platforms and involving different theoretical frameworks, but also opens up novel routes into relatively little explored regimes of many-body physics, specifically dissipative and driven systems.

Our strategy combines experimental, numerical and theoretical methods. Experiments are based primarily on trapped ions, atomic quantum gases, and superconducting circuits. Numerical simulations using state-of-the art methods for quantum many-body models complement these efforts. We focus in particular on engineered dissipative processes in Dicke-type models, coupled oscillator arrays and multi-mode systems including dissipation, and spin–spin interactions and artificial gauge fields in open systems.