Non-Equilibrium Steady States and Dynamics in a Tapped-Ion Quantum Simulator with Engineered Dissipation

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Quantum simulation has become a promising technology for exploring and solving hard scientific, engineering, and computational problems. So far, most quantum simulation experiments are focused on simulating quantum systems that do not interact with their environment. A major challenge in developing future quantum technologies is to address the inevitable coupling between the quantum system and its environment that often leads to unwanted decoherence of the system. A promising way to overcome this challenge is to fight natural dissipation with engineered dissipation. The main goal of this project is to find combinations of dissipation and interaction that can lead to new physical discoveries, or facilitate quantum information processing tasks, such as the generation of useful entangled states. The group will focus this project on a particular experimental platform that uses trapped ions, which is a leading platform for both quantum simulation and quantum computing. This project will also facilitate the education of a new generation of students with expertise in quantum technologies via a combined effort in undergraduate student research, the development of a new quantum engineering program, public quantum lectures to local high-school and community-college students, and an online project for providing STEM-oriented users a visually attractive and interactive platform for demonstrating quantum simulation with trapped ions.Technically, this project aims to both advance the theoretical understanding of non-equilibrium steady states and dynamics in open quantum systems with long-range interactions and guide near-future trapped-ion experiments in engineering dissipation for achieving novel dynamics, phase transitions, and state preparation. The proposed research will also be relevant to other experimental platforms, including polar molecules, circuit QED, and atoms coupled to multi-mode cavities. Thus it serves as a critical bridge between the experimental and theoretical communities working on open quantum many-body systems. The group will study four closely related topics: (1) Locality and its breakdown for systems with long-range interactions and local or nonlocal dissipation; (2) Steady-state phases and phase transitions for long-range interacting spins; (3) Preparation of many-body entangled states and thermal states via engineered dissipation; (4) Fighting against natural dissipation on trapped-ion qubits with engineered dissipation. Importantly, the group will also propose practical experimental setups for trapped-ion experimentalists, including two groups who are close collaborators, to investigate novel physics discovered under each topic.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.