CAREER: Analog and Digital Quantum Simulations with Fermionic Strontium

具有强相互作用和相关性的粒子系统是物理科学许多领域的核心，从原子，分子，光学和凝聚态物理到量子化学。在凝聚态物质中，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，可以通过对噪声和无序的鲁棒性来彻底改变技术。在量子化学中，确定分子的电子结构是一个强相关物质的问题，它建立了分子的静态，动态和相互作用特性，并且是解决从基础生物学到转化医学等问题的关键。本计画将利用超冷中性原子在光镊中的模拟与数位模拟来解决这些问题。在模拟仿真中，强相关系统的所有物理特性都将被同时仿真或模仿，而数字版本将使用频闪方法。该项目的广度和深度，无论是在实验工具和新颖的理论发展，将提供一个丰富的教育环境，为学生在各个层次和来自各种背景，并激励他们追求创造性的科学事业在工业界和学术界。这种环境将远远超出研究，通过一个计划，为初中和高中学生，青年物理学家计划，通过将学生带到加州大学圣地亚哥分校的实验室和设施，通过简化的大学学习可量化世界的基本主题，水平的实验室和互动演示。该项目将使用多色光镊和光束中的超冷费米锶原子，实现分数陈氏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模块。拓扑绝缘状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在倒易空间中设计晶格，并且将受益于超冷锶的低温和减少的自发辐射加热。另一方面，数字模拟器通过一组基本操作使用多体哈密顿的频闪近似，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。多色和移动的镊子将精细地捕获和精确地传输锶原子，这两项任务都是选择性地实现原子处于基态或长寿命激发态。精细控制、操纵和相互作用的单个费米子的前景将远远超过过去二十年来在量子比特方面取得的成就。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.