CAREER: Quantum Emulation of Strongly Driven Interacting Systems

非技术摘要：使用可以极快开启和关闭的激光，科学家现在可以探测原子内部电子的行为，时间尺度小于十亿分之一秒。这种能力有可能解锁新技术，包括成像生物分子内电子运动的相机，超高速信息处理器，以及基于物质奇异非平衡状态的设备。然而，这些令人兴奋的发展将要求我们在理解和控制非平衡量子系统的能力方面取得重大进展。为此，研究小组正在建造一种人造固体，其中捕获的锶原子被用来模拟电子固体在超快等效时间尺度上的行为。使用这种方法，该团队的目标是揭示物质中迄今不可见的超快过程，在超出现有理论和实验限制的情况下。研究活动纳入了当地高中、社区大学、本科、研究生和博士后各级的科学教育，重点是科学专业发展。作为该项目的一部分，PI指导了一个多层次的指导系统，在该系统中，研究生和博士后被培训为科学素养的倡导者和鼓励广泛参与研究的领导者。技术摘要：该项目使用光学捕获的超冷锶作为超快动力学的量子模拟器来研究强脉冲场与固体之间的相互作用，从而使用一些最慢的过程来探索原子物理中一些最快的过程。由于时间的重新调整，隧道电离等超快现象背后的动力学发生在毫秒而不是阿秒，并且可以在极慢的运动中观察到。这项研究包括三个相关的工作：(1)相互作用量子系统的脉冲响应的研究；(2)探索目前在固态中可能存在的奇异的强驱动哈密顿量；(3)在驱动晶格系统中实现可控的涌现非平衡相。这种基于量子仿真器的方法能够清楚地实现和研究强场现象，为验证和扩展现有的超快相互作用近似理论提供了一个工具，并为研究现有超快实验无法达到的非平衡区中出现的新物质形式和新现象开辟了道路。

Non-technical Abstract: Using lasers that can be turned on and off extremely quickly, scientists can now probe the behavior of electrons inside atoms at timescales smaller than a millionth of a billionth of a second. This capability has the potential to unlock new technologies, including cameras for imaging electron motion inside biomolecules, ultrafast information processors, and devices based on exotic non-equilibrium states of matter. However, these exciting developments will require major advances in our ability to understand and control non-equilibrium quantum systems. To this end, the research team is building an artificial solid in which trapped strontium atoms are used to emulate the behavior of electronic solids on ultrafast-equivalent timescales. Using this approach, the team aims to reveal hitherto invisible ultrafast processes in matter, in regimes beyond the limits of existing theories and experiments. Research activities are integrated into local science education at the high school, community college, undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels, with a focus on scientific professional development. As part of the project, the PI guides a multi-layered mentoring system in which graduate students and postdocs are trained to become advocates for science literacy and leaders who encourage broad participation in research. Technical Abstract: This project studies interactions between intense pulsed fields and solids using optically trapped ultracold strontium as a quantum emulator of ultrafast dynamics, thus probing some of the fastest processes in atomic physics using some of the slowest. As a result of this rescaling of time, the dynamics underlying ultrafast phenomena like tunnel ionization occur over milliseconds rather than attoseconds, and can be observed in extreme slow-motion. The research consists of three related efforts: (1) studies of the impulse response of interacting quantum systems; (2) exploration of exotic strong-driving Hamiltonians beyond those which are currently possible in the solid state; and (3) realization of controllable emergent non-equilibrium phases in driven lattice systems. The quantum-emulator-based approach enables clean realization and study of strong-field phenomena, provides a tool for validation and extension of existing approximate theories of ultrafast interactions, and opens the path to studying new forms of matter and new phenomena that emerge in non-equilibrium regimes beyond the reach of existing ultrafast experiments.