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Many-body Quantum Dynamics

Cavendish Laboratory
 
Transition from Mott Insulator to staggered Superfluid

In our lastest work we have used a resonantly driven optical lattice to turn the Mott transition into a first-order (discontinuous) transition. We were able to directly observe the associated hysteresis and metastability, where the system remains stuck in its original phase (the false vacuum) even though the ground state has changed.

In contrast to earlier work, we use a strongly correlated system of bosonic atoms in an optical lattice, where quantum fluctuations play an important role. This opens the door to studying the quantum decay of such a metastable state, termed false-vacuum decay, which is relevant in particle physics and cosmology as an analogue of the ‘Big Bang’ in inflationary universes.

Press release

https://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/news/towards-quantum-simulation-false-vacuum-decay

 

TCM Reserach Highlights

https://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/highlights/220120G4A_sd843/

 

Original Article

Realizing discontinuous quantum phase transitions in a strongly-correlated driven optical lattice

Bo Song, Shovan Dutta, Shaurya Bhave, Jr-Chiun Yu, Edward Carter, Nigel Cooper, Ulrich Schneider
Nature Physics 18, 259 (2022)

Latest news

Nature: Observing the 2D Bose glass

13 September 2024

Our work on observing the 2D Bose glass in our optical quasicrystal has been published in Nature: Observing the two-dimensional Bose glass in an optical quasicrystal Jr-Chiun Yu, Shaurya Bhave, Lee reeve, Bo Song, Ulrich Schneider Nature 633 , 338–343 (2024). Press release on the Department of Physics Webpage : Physicists...

Individual tunnelling control in optical lattices

9 September 2024

Optical lattices are power quantum simulators with many applications in e.g. strongly-correlated and topological systems. However, up to now, they were limited in programmability since typically all tunnelling links were of the same strength. In this new paper, we show theoretically how local control over individual...

Cold atoms and molecules for fundamental physics Conference

1 August 2024

Last week we had the pleasure of hosting 85 scientists for our ICAP satellite conference on Cold Atoms and Molecules for Fundamental Physics in Cambridge. Many thanks to all the speakers, poster presenters and participants for 3 days of inspiring discussions! Cold atoms and molecules for fundamental physics - ICAP satellite

IOP Joseph Thomson Medal

22 December 2023

Professor Ulrich Schneider received the IOP 2023 Joseph Thomson Medal and Prize for groundbreaking experiments on the collective dynamics of quantum gases in optical lattices, including fundamental studies of localization effects in both disordered and quasicrystalline systems. More information at: https://www.iop.org/...

Postdoc Positions available

1 July 2023

We have two experimental postdoc opportunities on many-body physics in Optical Quasicrystals and on being part of the UK Quantum Technology Hub and developing optical optical-lattice and tweezer-based Quantum Simulators . More information at: https://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/41624/ Applications close on 15/8/23.