Physics Colloquium: Cheng Chin, "Quantum Simulation and Quantum Control with Ultracold Atoms"
Physics Colloquium
Quantum Simulation and Quantum Control with Ultracold Atoms
Cheng Chin
Professor, James Franck Institute
Enrico Fermi Institute and Department of Physics
University of Chicago
Abstract
Laser cooling and trapping of atoms embarks on an exploration into a new world where a complete quantum control is possible. New tools to precisely manipulate atomic interactions are developed, which advance simulation of complex quantum systems in nature and reveal exotic quantum phenomena. I will outline in this talk the basics of quantum control with cold atoms, as well as examples of quantum simulation relevant to nuclear, condensed matter and gravitational physics. Finally I will outline our new experiment to gain full control of a many-body Hamiltonian toward a scalable quantum information and quantum simulation platform.
Background
Cheng Chin earned his B.S. degree in Physics from National Taiwan University in 1993 and his Ph.D. degree in Physics from Stanford University in 2001 under the advisory of Dr. Steven Chu. He conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford (2001-2003) and at Innsbruck University (2003-2005). He joined the University of Chicago in 2005 and has been a full professor in the Department of Physics, the Enrico Fermi institute, and the James Franck institute since 2012. He has also been a visiting professor at Innsbruck University (Austria), ETH (Switzerland), Rice University, MIT, Academic Sinica (Taiwan), Univ. of Ulm (Germany), Univ. of Munich (Germany), Max Planck institute (Germany), JILA, Tsinghua University (China) and National Sun Yat-Sen University (Taiwan).
Research
Cheng Chin’s research focuses on experimental atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics. Recent works include laser cooling, Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms and molecules, strongly interacting Fermi gas, Feshbach and Efimov states, quantum information science, novel quantum states and quantum dynamics, thermophoretic levitation, and quantum simulation of condensed matter, nuclear, high-energy and cosmological systems.