CAREER: Analog and Digital Quantum Simulations with Fermionic Strontium

职业：使用费米子锶进行模拟和数字量子模拟

• 批准号: 1752630
• 负责人: Julio Barreiro Guerrero
• 金额: $ 60.06万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1752630&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Analog; Digital; Quantum; Simulations

Systems of particles with strong interactions and correlations lie at the heart of many areas of the physical sciences, from atomic, molecular, optical, and condensed-matter physics to quantum chemistry. In condensed matter, strong interactions determine the formation of topological phases giving materials unexpected physical properties that could revolutionize technology through robustness to noise and disorder. In quantum chemistry, determining the electronic structure of molecules is a problem of strongly correlated matter that establishes the static, dynamic and interaction properties of molecules as well as being key in tackling questions ranging from basic biology to translational medicine. This project will tackle these problems through the analog and digital simulation of their quintessential strongly-interacting properties on an apparatus with ultracold neutral atoms in optical tweezers. In the analog simulations, all the physics of the strongly correlated systems will be simultaneously emulated or mimicked, while the digital version will use a stroboscopic approach. The breadth and depth of this project, both in experimental tools and novel theoretical developments, will provide a rich educational environment for students at all levels and from all backgrounds, and inspire them to purse creative scientific careers in industry and academia. This environment will reach far beyond the research through a program for middle and high school students, the Young Physicist Program, by bringing the students to the University of California - San Diego labs and facilities to learn about fundamental topics in the quantifiable world via simplified college-level laboratories and interactive demonstrations.This project will use ultracold fermionic strontium atoms in polychromatic optical tweezers and beams to realize an analog simulator of fractional Chern insulators and to demonstrate the building blocks of a digital simulator of many-body fermionic open systems. The simulation of the topological insulating state will follow an optical flux approach, which engineers the lattice in reciprocal space through polychromatic beams driving a manifold of Raman transitions, and will benefit from ultracold strontium's low temperatures and reduced heating by spontaneous emission. The digital simulator, on the other hand, uses a stroboscopic approximation of the many-body Hamiltonian, or Liouvillian for open systems, through a set of elementary operations, much like a quantum computer, but with fermions instead of qubits, and arbitrary hopping and interactions between fermionic modes, instead of qubit gates. Polychromatic and mobile tweezers will exquisitely trap and precisely transport strontium atoms, both tasks achieved selectively for atoms in their ground or long-lived excited states. The prospects of exquisitely controlling, manipulating and interacting single fermions would exceed by far that achieved over the last two decades of doing the same with qubits.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

具有强相互作用和相关性的粒子系统位于许多物理科学领域的核心，从原子、分子、光学和凝聚态物理到量子化学。在凝聚态中，强相互作用决定了拓扑相的形成，赋予材料意想不到的物理性质，这些性质可以通过对噪声和无序的稳健性来彻底改变技术。在量子化学中，确定分子的电子结构是一个强关联物质的问题，它建立了分子的静态、动态和相互作用性质，也是解决从基础生物学到转化医学等一系列问题的关键。这个项目将通过模拟和数字模拟它们的典型的强相互作用性质来解决这些问题，这些性质是在光镊子中使用超冷中性原子的装置上的。在模拟模拟中，强关联系统的所有物理将被同时模拟或模拟，而数字版本将使用频闪方法。该项目的广度和深度，无论是在实验工具方面，还是在新颖的理论发展方面，都将为各个层次和各种背景的学生提供一个丰富的教育环境，并激励他们在工业和学术界追求创造性的科学职业。这一环境将远远超出研究范围，通过一个面向初中生的计划，青年物理学家计划，通过简化的大学级实验室和互动演示，将学生带到加州大学圣地亚哥分校的实验室和设施，学习可量化世界的基本主题。该项目将使用多色光钳和光束中的超冷费米子锶原子来实现分数级陈绝缘体的模拟模拟器，并演示多体费米子开放系统的数字模拟器的构建块。拓扑绝缘态的模拟将遵循光通量方法，该方法通过多色光束驱动多种拉曼跃迁来工程倒易空间中的晶格，并将受益于超冷锶的低温和通过自发辐射减少的加热。另一方面，数字模拟器通过一系列基本操作，使用多体哈密顿量的频闪近似，或开放系统的Liouvillian，很像量子计算机，但使用费米子而不是量子比特，以及费米子模式之间的任意跳跃和相互作用，而不是量子比特门。多色和移动镊子将巧妙地捕获和精确地传输锶原子，这两项任务都是为处于基态或长寿命激发态的原子选择性地实现的。到目前为止，精确控制、操纵和相互作用单个费米子的前景将远远超过过去20年对量子比特进行同样操作所取得的成就。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。