Quantum Many-Body Thermodynamic Engines

摘要：热力学最初是在19世纪作为理解蒸汽机性能的工具而发展起来的，已经发展成为我们现代对物理世界理解的基础的核心理论模型。虽然人们越来越认识到量子现象可以改变并在某些情况下提高热力学发动机的性能，超出经典极限，但量子热机的实验实现很少得到证明。该项目将实现热机，使用深度量子力学捕获气体作为工作流体，以探索19世纪热力学和21世纪量子控制之间的技术和科学机会。这些实验不仅可以应用于新兴量子技术的能源效率，还可以对与技术相关的热力学原理的基础有新的见解。这项研究将由博士后、研究生和本科生进行，他们将受益于现代实验量子力学技术的指导和培训。在资助期的每个夏天，将支持一个研究生-本科生团队，以发展他们在指导和实验室研究方面的技能。PI将通过有针对性的本科课程的研讨会和讲座，扩大支持年轻研究人员专业发展的努力。摘要：虽然量子相干性已被证明能够在单粒子量子热机中实现超越经典的性能，但诸如纠缠等特征在多体量子热机中的作用尚不完全清楚，仍然是一个积极研究的主题。本项目探索使用可调谐相互作用简并玻色子气体作为工作流体的量子多体热力学发动机。该项目有三个具体目标：使用具有可调相互作用的玻色凝聚物创建多体费什巴赫发动机，使用绝热捷径对量子热力学发动机进行实验优化，以及实现以多体定域量子气体作为工作流体的热机。成功将为现代量子控制技术应用于能量使用和转换的一些最基本的热力学过程铺平道路。从长远来看，更好地理解量子热力学可能会对科学和技术的许多方面产生影响，包括开发高效量子信息处理架构的潜在努力。此外，这项工作的结果将加强量子热力学和原子物理学领域之间已经充满活力的相互作用和思想交流。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

General audience abstract:Thermodynamics, originally developed in the 19th century as a tool for understanding the performance of steam engines, has developed into a central theoretical model which lies at the foundation of our modern understanding of the physical world. While it is increasingly understood that quantum phenomena can modify and in some cases enhance the performance of thermodynamic engines beyond classical limits, few experimental realizations of quantum heat engines have been demonstrated. This project will realize heat engines which use deeply quantum-mechanical trapped gases as a working fluid, in order to explore technological and scientific opportunities at the interface between 19th-century thermodynamics and 21st-century quantum control. The experiments may enable not only applications in the energy efficiency of emerging quantum technologies, but also new insights into the foundations of technologically-relevant principles of thermodynamics. The research will be performed by postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students, who will benefit from mentorship and training in modern techniques of experimental quantum mechanics. A graduate-undergraduate team will be supported in each summer of the grant period to develop their skills in mentoring and laboratory research. The PI will expand his efforts to support the professional development of young researchers via workshops and lectures in a targeted undergraduate course.Technical audience abstract:While quantum coherence has been shown to enable beyond-classical performance in single-particle quantum heat engines, the role of characteristics such as entanglement in many-body quantum thermodynamic engines is incompletely understood and remains a topic of active investigation. This project explores quantum many-body thermodynamic engines using tunable interacting degenerate bosonic gases as the working fluid. The project has three specific aims: the creation of a many-body Feshbach engine using a Bose condensate with tunable interactions, the experimental optimization of a quantum thermodynamic engine using shortcuts to adiabaticity, and the realization of a heat engine with a many-body-localized quantum gas as the working fluid. Success would pave the way for the application of modern quantum control techniques to some of the most fundamental thermodynamic processes of energy usage and conversion. In the long run, a better understanding of quantum thermodynamics could have an impact on many aspects of science and technology, including potentially the effort to develop efficient quantum information processing architectures. Furthermore, the results of this work will strengthen the already-vibrant interplay and exchange of ideas between the fields of quantum thermodynamics and atomic physics.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.