Disordered Ultracold Atomic Systems

本研究将以超冷原子系统为模型，探讨凝聚态系统中与无序相关的物理问题。无序在现实世界的材料中是普遍存在的，并且通常是决定材料性能和特性的关键。因此，理解无序的物理学对于开发新材料和理解现有材料非常重要。然而，这是具有挑战性的，因为许多凝聚态物理的工具依赖于底层晶格结构的周期性，而无序的情况并非如此。其结果是，许多具有良好发展的物理模型和解的系统在无序存在的情况下变得不可解。这项工作将探索一些无序的物理问题，使用模型超冷原子系统使用玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚。研究人员将研究无序二维系统，这与许多固态系统有关，包括高Tc超导体。利用非相称光晶格，研究探索量子退火和绝热量子计算的过程。这些主题依赖于系统在进化过程中保持在最低能量状态，如果存在紧密间隔的能级，这可能很难满足，几乎总是在无序存在的情况下。这项工作位于原子物理学、量子信息科学和凝聚态物理学的交叉点。无序几乎出现在所有的实用材料中，因此任何对无序物理的进一步理解都将潜在地有助于新材料的开发。精确地了解系统和对系统参数有良好控制的能力，可能允许对无序系统有比固态系统更深入的了解。量子退火和绝热量子计算对于我们关于量子信息处理能力的整体发展以及量子系统可能比经典系统具有的附加效用非常重要。这项工作将培养博士后、研究生和本科生成为量子信息科学与技术新领域的下一代高技能工作者。

This research will explore the physics related to disorder in condensed matter systems by using ultracold atomic systems as models. Disorder is ubiquitous in real-world materials and often is critical in determining material performance and properties. Understanding the physics of disorder is therefore important to the development of new materials and understanding existing ones. Yet it is challenging because many of the tools of condensed matter physics rely on the periodicity of the underlying lattice structure, which is not the case for disorder. As a result, many systems that have well developed physical models and solutions become insoluble with disorder present. This work will explore a number of disordered physics issues using model ultracold atom systems using Bose-Einstein condensates. Researchers will investigate disordered two-dimensional systems, which are relevant to many solid-state systems including high Tc superconductors. Using incommensurate optical lattices, research will be carried out exploring the process of quantum annealing and adiabatic quantum computing. These topics rely on a system remaining in the lowest energy state even as the system is evolved, which can become hard to satisfy if there are closely spaced energy levels, almost always the case in the presence of disorder.This work resides at the intersection of atomic physics, quantum information science, and condensed matter physics. Disorder appears in almost all practical materials, so any further understanding of the physics of disorder will potentially contribute to the development of new materials. The ability to know the system exactly and to have good control over system parameters may allow for more insight into disordered systems than is achievable in solid-state systems. Quantum annealing and adiabatic quantum computation are important in the overall development of our ideas about the power of quantum information processing and in general the added utility that a quantum system may have over a classical one. This work will train postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students to be the next generation of highly skilled workers in the new area of quantum information science and technology.