Non-equilibrium dynamics of correlated quantum materials

近年来，物理学家、化学家和工程师一直在竞相开发和利用一类新材料，在大范围的能量和长度尺度上显示量子效应，其目标是彻底改变信息处理设备、存储器和传感器的发展。这些量子材料的性质来自大量强烈相互作用的电子或原子的微妙集体相互作用。这一特性使它们对外部刺激极其敏感，但也提供了一种潜在的途径来对其性质进行实际控制，这是利用其量子优势的先决条件。因此，了解这些系统中的涌现属性和相关性如何动态调整具有重要的基础和技术意义。 超快激光源的出现为科学家提供了一种前所未有的工具来操纵量子材料。这也为研究它们在非平衡条件下的行为打开了一扇新的窗口。在这种方法中，强烈的激光脉冲地触发激发，以诱导可能没有准平衡等价物的过程。这种技术的发展导致人们共同努力，利用这种现象来探测量子材料并对其进行控制。 我的研究旨在开发新的概念和方法，以推进光激发量子材料的理论理解。使用复杂的数值和分析技术相结合，我将研究影响其非平衡动力学的关键因素：（i）环境耦合的存在，（ii）能量尺度之间的竞争，以及（iii）自旋轨道耦合的存在。这种方法将为调整量子材料特性的实验工作提供信息。这个多方面的计划将帮助加拿大保持其作为量子研究和开发（R&D）领导者的地位。它为动态增强有前途的量子材料的性能提供了理论路线图;这是量子器件发展的关键一步，是量子技术革命的下一个里程碑。

In recent years, physicists, chemists and engineers have been engaged in a race towards developing and exploiting a new class of materials, displaying quantum effects over a large range of energy and length scales, with the objective of revolutionising the development of information processing devices, memories and sensors. These quantum materials derive their properties from the subtle collective interplay of a large number of strongly interacting electrons or atoms. This characteristic renders them extremely sensitive to external stimuli, but also provides a potential avenue to exert practical control over their properties, a precondition to exploit their quantum advantage. Understanding how the emergent properties and correlations in these systems can be dynamically tuned is therefore of great fundamental and technological importance. The advent of ultrafast laser sources has provided scientists an unprecedented tool with which to manipulate quantum materials. It has also opened up a new window into their behaviour under non-equilibrium conditions. Within this approach, an intense laser pulse impulsively triggers excitations to induce processes that may have no quasi-equilibrium equivalents. This technological development has led to concerted efforts to use this phenomenon to probe quantum materials and to exert control over them. My research aims to develop novel concepts and methods to advance the theoretical understanding of photo-excited quantum materials. Using a combination of sophisticated numerical and analytical techniques, I will study key factors influencing their non-equilibrium dynamics: (i) the presence of environmental coupling, (ii) the competition between energy scales, and (iii) the presence of spin-orbit coupling. This approach will inform experimental efforts to tune the properties of quantum materials. This multi-faceted program will help Canada maintain its position as a leader in quantum research and development (R&D). It provides a theoretical roadmap to dynamically enhance the properties of promising quantum materials; a crucial step for the development of quantum devices, the next milestone towards the quantum technology revolution.