CAREER: Quantum Emulation of Strongly Driven Interacting Systems

非技术摘要：利用可以极快打开和关闭的激光器，科学家们现在可以在小于十亿分之一秒的时间尺度上探测原子内电子的行为。这种能力有可能开启新技术，包括用于成像生物分子内电子运动的相机、超快信息处理器和基于外来非平衡态物质的设备。然而，这些令人兴奋的发展将需要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，研究小组正在构建一种人造固体，其中捕获的锶原子用于模拟电子固体在超快等效时间尺度上的行为。利用这种方法，该团队的目标是揭示迄今为止不可见的物质超快过程，超越现有理论和实验的限制。研究活动被纳入当地高中、社区学院、本科、研究生和博士后水平的科学教育，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，在这个系统中，研究生和博士后被训练成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：本项目利用光捕获超冷锶作为超快动力学的量子模拟器，研究强脉冲场与固体之间的相互作用，从而用一些最慢的原子物理过程探索一些最快的过程。由于时间的重新调整，像隧道电离这样的超快现象背后的动力学发生在几毫秒而不是阿秒，并且可以在极端慢动作中观察到。本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研究；(2)探索超越目前固态的强驱动哈密顿量；(3)驱动晶格系统中可控涌现非平衡相的实现。基于量子模拟器的方法能够清晰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工具，并为研究现有超快实验无法达到的非平衡状态下出现的新形式的物质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.