Designing Out-of-Equilibrium Many-Body Quantum Systems

海量数据通过互联网传输，我们的电脑和手机每秒都在处理这些数据。一直连接到互联网已经改变了我们生活的许多方面，从我们购物的方式到我们会见朋友的方式。越来越多的设备连接到互联网，服务被转移到网上以改善我们的生活质量，这推动了对进一步提高我们处理数据能力的需求。我们存储和处理数据的技术背后的物理原理是基于我们对非平衡动力学的理解。更好地控制这种物理对于进一步缩小电子设备和解决开发节能交换和通信链路的主要挑战至关重要。预计在不久的将来，信息处理技术的进一步进步将在很大程度上依赖于叠加和纠缠等量子效应。此外，随着最近启动的国家量子技术方案的成果在2020年后开始可用，拥有能够面对下一代技术挑战的知识将变得更加重要，例如新开发的量子设备的规模扩大。如何在存在噪声和退相干的情况下利用这些日益复杂的器件的优势，本质上是一个非平衡多体量子物理的问题。因此，至关重要的是，现在就必须制定出支持非平衡量子系统设计的方法。我们的愿景是探索、理解和设计与此类未来通信和量子技术相关的非平衡量子动力学，使用具有光学势能的超冷原子气体的量子模拟器。超冷气体是一个独特的平台，因为它们在量子系统中提供了可控性和多功能性，这是目前任何其他量子系统都无法比拟的。我们将建立和研究超冷原子模拟，以帮助规划和设计非平衡多体量子动力学，类似于风洞在空气动力学中的应用。该项目将通过探索与未来技术特别相关的非平衡动力学的三个广泛方面来利用这些能力：(I)驱动量子系统的开关行为，这也可以用于设计增强型经典信息处理设备；(Ii)作为量子增强传感器的驱动量子系统；以及(Iii)在驱动量子系统中设计紧急现象。我们的活动将把英国现有的国际领先的研究人员联系在一起，共同开展一个具有高度科学兴趣和技术相关性的新的共同项目。这为英国在使用量子模拟器探索量子多体系统中的非平衡动力学方面采取世界领先地位提供了独特的机会。

Huge amounts of data are routed through the internet and are being processed by our computers and mobile phones every second. Always being connected to the internet has transformed many aspects of our lives, from the way we do our shopping to how we meet friends. The demand for further improving our ability to process data is driven by ever more devices being connected to the internet and services being moved online to improve our quality of life. The physical principles underlying our technology to store and process data are based on our understanding of out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Better control of this physics is crucial to further shrinking electronic devices and to address the major challenge of developing energy-efficient switching and communications links. Such further progress in information processing technologies is expected to heavily rely on quantum effects like superposition and entanglement in the near future. In addition, as the fruits of the recently initiated National Quantum Technology Programme start to become available after 2020, it will be even more important to have the knowledge in place to be able to face the next generation of technological challenges, such as the scaling up of the newly developed quantum devices. How to exploit the advantages of these increasingly complex devices in the presence of noise and decoherence is intrinsically an issue of out-of-equilibrium many-body quantum physics. It is therefore crucial to put methods in place now that will underpin the design of out-of-equilibrium quantum systems. Our vision is to explore, understand, and design out-of-equilibrium quantum dynamics that are relevant for such future communication and quantum technologies, using quantum simulators with ultracold atomic gases in optical potentials. Ultracold gases are a unique platform in that they offer controllability and versatility in the quantum regime that is currently unparalleled by any other quantum system. We will set up and investigate ultracold atom simulations to help planning and designing out-of-equilibrium many-body quantum dynamics similarly to how wind tunnels are utilized in aerodynamics. This project will capitalise on these capabilities by exploring three broad aspects of out-of-equilibrium dynamics that are especially relevant for future technologies: (i) switching behaviour of driven quantum systems, which could also be used to design enhanced classical information processing devices; (ii) driven quantum systems as quantum-enhanced sensors; and (iii) engineering emergent phenomena in driven quantum systems. Our activity will bind together existing internationally leading researchers within the UK on a novel common project of high scientific interest and technological relevance. This provides a unique opportunity for the UK to adopt a world-leading position in the use of quantum simulators to explore out-of-equilibrium dynamics in quantum many-body systems.