Quantum and Condensed Matter Physics

The Quantum and Condensed Matter Group at Dartmouth focuses on a range of problems at the intersection of quantum information processing, quantum statistical mechanics, and condensed matter physics. In this new frontier of condensed matter physics, our research involves not only understanding how systems work, but also how to design and control physical systems to function as we want. Common threads that run through both the experimental and theoretical research programs include: coherent control and many-body dynamics of complex quantum systems; dynamics of open quantum systems, quantum decoherence and quantum measurements; hybrid quantum device architectures.

Some of our recent publications (on arXiv.org).

Professor Blencowe's research interests are primarily within mesoscopic physics, in particular nanometer-to-micrometer scale systems that possess quantum electronic, mechanical, and electromagnetic degrees of freedom.

Professor Boyack's research is focused on using field-theoretical methods to understand emergent and critical phenomena in many-body systems including superfluids, superconductors, and spin liquids.

Professor Viola's research focuses on theoretical quantum information physics and quantum engineering. Current emphasis is on developing strategies for robustly controlling realistic open quantum systems, and on investigating fundamental aspects related to many-body quantum dynamics, entanglement and quantum randomness.

Professor Whitfield focuses on the role that quantum mechanics plays in computation both in terms of quantum computers and classical models of quantum information. Important areas under investigation are density functional theory, quantum simulation on today's quantum computers, and the physics of computation.

Professor Rimberg's research focuses on radio-frequency and microwave techniques to investigate quantum phenomena in such nanostructures as quantum dots and single-electron transistors. The group has active collaborations with the University of Wisconsin and NIST Boulder.

Professor Ramanathan's research addresses the challenge of controlling and measuring quantum phenomena in large many-body systems by exploring the quantum dynamics of solid state spin systems. The group has active collaborations with the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, Harvard University and MIT.

Professor Wright is investigating the properties of quantum systems using ensembles of ultracold atoms, with an emphasis on atom-photon interaction in many-body systems. Specific topics of interest include nonequilibrium phase transitions, transport phenomena, cavity optomechanics and cavity QED.

Professor Sarpeshkar's research focuses on using analog circuits and analog computation to design advanced quantum circuits, quantum computer architectures. and hybrid quantum-classical systems. Such systems have applications for simulating chemistry via analog supercomputing chips in his dry lab, in fault-tolerant quantum computing, and in quantum circuit design for NMR or superconducting RF circuits.

Francesco Ticozzi, Adjoint Visiting Assistant Professor focuses on quantum control theory, information encoding and communication in quantum systems, and information-theoretic approaches to control systems.

Some of our recent publications (on arXiv.org).