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  • Quantum Simulation with Cold Atoms in Engineered Optical Potentials

    April 1, 2014

    Many-body quantum systems can be very difficult to handle theoretically, and in some important cases the true nature of the phase diagram is not yet accurately known. One possible path to gain deeper understanding of these incredibly rich physical systems is to engineer a "synthetic" many body quantum system that maps onto a particular system of interest, but has more conveniently tunable properties. Ultracold atoms in engineered optical potentials are one platform for such an approach.

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  • Symmetry Breaking and Critical Scaling in Ultracold Quantum Gases

    April 1, 2014

    Driving a physical system abruptly through a continuous phase transition leads to a variety of interesting physical phenomena, including spontaneous formation of topological defects such as solitons, vortex lines, and monopoles. This is a universal phenomenon which is relevant to systems as diverse as ultra-cold quantum fluids and the cooling of the universe shortly after a `hot big bang'. The critical behavior of these systems is not determined by local dynamics, but rather by universal scaling laws arising from key global parameters (e.g.

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  • Topological Quantum Matter

    April 1, 2014

    Topological phases of matter are distinguished by a form of quantum order that cannot be characterized in terms of any local order parameter. A most striking manifestation of topological order is the emergence of topologically protected zero-energy boundary modes that are otherwise not realized in Nature. For a topological superconductor, in particular, such emergent quasi-particles coincide with their own anti-particles, naturally embodying elusive quantum objects known as "Majorana fermions".

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  • Many-Body Quantum Chaos and Quantum Thermodynamics

    April 1, 2014

    Understanding and justifying the emergence of equilibrium behavior in generic, non-integrable many-body quantum systems is a longstanding challenge at the very heart of statistical mechanics. We are exploring how concepts and tools from quantum information theory may be used to build a consistent theoretical framework for describing ergodicity and mixing properties in many-body quantum systems that lack a natural classical counterpart, and to characterize distinctive aspects of complex quantum dynamics.

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  • Entanglement and Quantum Correlations

    April 1, 2014

    Entanglement provides a distinctively quantum type of correlation that has no analogue in classical statistical mechanics. Despite much progress, a satisfactory understanding of the nature and properties of quantum correlations in composite quantum systems, and the extent to which different kinds of correlations may be a resource for quantum information tasks is far from being reached.

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