Quantum Engineering with Dissipation

在题为“具有耗散的量子工程”的项目中，我们创建并研究了强相互作用的量子简并原子气体，重点放在由强非弹性或耗散相互作用诱导关联的系统上。耗散正在成为量子工程的一种新工具，用于创建基本感兴趣的新状态。我们利用耗散在三维光学晶格中的锶凝聚体中建立了空间关联，并研究了超流到Mott绝缘体转变的耗散模拟。光学Feshbach共振被用来产生二体非弹性相互作用，而三体非弹性相互作用的效应可以用自然具有较大三体衰减率的锶-86来探索。在这些系统中有许多有趣的性质需要研究，例如建立粒子关联的标准，激发光谱，以及改变晶格和相互作用参数的绝热时间尺度。此外，在大体积系统中，我们将观察玻色凝聚体对相互作用强度从弱相互作用区到强相互作用区的快速猝灭的响应，这可以通过光学Feshbach共振产生。大块系统和晶格中的实验感兴趣的是在多体状态下发展空间关联的时间尺度。当大量粒子聚集在一起并相互作用时，可能会出现新的现象，这些现象是从粒子对之间相互作用的基本形式中意想不到的。超导就是一个著名的例子。对于许多物理学领域来说，理解强相互作用的多体系统是一个巨大的挑战，因为具有技术意义的新材料属性的前景，也因为这些系统可能非常复杂，它们扩展了我们对自然界的理解。在过去的十年里，在创造和研究超冷气体原子云方面取得了巨大的进步，这种气体原子云可以用激光冷却到绝对零度以上约百万分之一度的温度。用这种方法制造的超冷原子具有惊人的特性，它们的相互作用可以被任意控制，这为用它们来制作设计材料或测试相互作用的多体系统的模型打开了可能性。在国家科学基金会的资助下，基利安教授在德克萨斯州休斯敦的莱斯大学的研究小组将开发利用激光操纵原子与原子相互作用的新技术，并寻找新的新兴现象。这项工作将涉及至少两名研究生和一名本科生，并将培训他们在光学或材料领域从事高科技职业。这项工作还将包括本科生研究人员的暑期研究和工作期间的学术术语导致荣誉研究论文。像这样的基本原子物理实验为明天的技术奇迹奠定了今天的科学和人力资源基础。

In the project entitled "Quantum Engineering with Dissipation," we create and study strongly interacting quantum degenerate atomic gases, with a focus on systems in which correlations are induced by strong inelastic, or dissipative, interactions. Dissipation is emerging as a new tool for quantum engineering for creating novel states of fundamental interest. We use dissipation to create spatial correlations in strontium condensates in three-dimensional optical lattices and study the dissipative analog of the superfluid-to-Mott-insulator transition. An optical Feshbach resonance is used to create two-body inelastic interactions, and the effects of three-body inelastic interactions can be explored with Sr-86, which naturally has a large three-body decay rate. There are many interesting properties to study in these systems, such as the criteria for creation of particle correlations, excitation spectra, and adiabaticity timescales for changing lattice and interaction parameters. In addition, in a bulk system we will look at the response of a Bose condensate to a rapid quench of the interaction strength from the weakly interacting to the strongly interacting regime, which can be produced with an optical Feshbach resonance. Of interest to experiments in a bulk system and lattice is the timescale for development of spatial correlations in the many-body state.When large numbers of particles come together and interact, new phenomena can emerge that are unexpected from the basic form of the interaction between pairs of particles. Superconductivity is a famous example of this. Understanding strongly interacting, many-body systems is a grand challenge for many areas of physics because of the promise of new material properties of technological significance and also because the systems can be very complicated and they stretch our understanding of the natural world. In the last decade, there have been great advances in the creation and study of ultracold clouds of gaseous atoms, which are cooled by lasers to temperatures around a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. Ultracold atoms made in this way have the amazing property that their interactions can be arbitrarily controlled, which opens the possibility of using them to make designer materials or test models of interacting, many-body systems. With the support of this National Science Foundation grant, Prof. Killian's research group at Rice University in Houston, Texas will develop new techniques for manipulating atom-atom interactions using lasers and search for new emergent phenomena.This work will involve at least two graduate students and one undergraduate student, and it will train them for high-technology careers in optics or materials. This work will also involve undergraduate researchers in summer research and work during the academic terms leading to honors research theses. Basic atomic physics experiments such as these lay the scientific and human resources foundation today for the technological marvels of tomorrow.