CAREER: Quantum many-body physics beyond the Boltzmann paradigm: prethermalization, many-body localization, and their applications

职业：超越玻尔兹曼范式的量子多体物理：预热、多体局域化及其应用

基本信息

批准号：
2236517
负责人：
Sarang Gopalakrishnan
金额：
$ 48.43万
依托单位：
Princeton University
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Continuing Grant
财政年份：
2022
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2022-12-01 至 2023-06-30
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2236517&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
CAREER Quantum many body physics

项目摘要

NONTECHNICAL SUMMARYThe Division of Materials Research and the Division of Physics contribute funds to this CAREER award, which supports theoretical research and education on the dynamics of quantum systems made up from many interacting particles. The project explores quantum systems that take anomalously long to approach thermal equilibrium (or, in some extreme cases, never approach equilibrium). The approach to equilibrium involves a system "forgetting" information about its initial state. For example, if a gas is initially put in the left side of a tube, and then is allowed to spread throughout the tube, it eventually forgets which side it started out in. This apparent "forgetting" is at odds with the laws of quantum mechanics, which in fact conserve information; it is believed that information about the initial state is never truly forgotten, but is stored in complicated, experimentally inaccessible correlations. How information migrates from measurable to hidden correlations is in general not understood. This project approaches the general question from the perspective of states of matter related to glasses, in which "forgetting" is extremely slow. In the intermediate regimes, some sectors of the system are in equilibrium, whereas others are far from it. New theoretical methods that generalize conventional statistical mechanics are required to characterize these intermediate regimes. Developing such methods and using them to identify distinctive features of these intermediate regimes are primary objectives of this project. The other major focus of this project is to use slowly equilibrating systems for novel quantum applications, including heat engines, quantum memories, and sensors. Since equilibration corresponds to the forgetting or hiding of information, systems that are slow to equilibrate retain information for very long times; this observation underlies the various applications that will be explored in this project. This project will take place at the College of Staten Island, which has a diverse student body including large proportions of first-generation college students, underrepresented minorities, and recent immigrants. Educational activities will include curricular development to make physics relevant for this wide range of students, including the reorientation of standard courses to emphasize general-purpose computational methods, which are useful in a wide range of professions, as well as development of new courses on complex systems. Outreach to the broader community will involve developing a mini museum that will illustrate universal phenomena in everyday life through simple interactive exhibits. TECHNICAL SUMMARYThe Division of Materials Research and the Division of Physics contribute funds to this CAREER award, which supports theoretical research and education on the properties of interacting quantum systems that approach thermal equilibrium anomalously slowly: i.e., systems for which the thermalization timescale is much longer than other intrinsic timescales. These include isolated systems that are nearly integrable or nearly many-body localized, as well as related open systems. The main goals of this project are threefold: to develop computational methods suited to slowly thermalizing systems, to characterize distinctively non-thermal features of distribution functions in such systems, and to apply these distinctive features to quantum technologies. The first main goal is to develop methods to describe the dynamics of slowly thermalizing systems. Existing approaches are typically limited to short times and/or small systems, owing to the growth of entanglement. This project will develop methods tailored to the intermediate and late-time behavior of slowly thermalizing systems. Specifically, field theories of the prethermalized regime, as well as mean-field and renormalization-group techniques that leverage the separation of timescales between interactions and thermalization to describe the emergence of thermal behavior. These methods will be applied to experiments involving ultracold atomic systems that are nearly integrable (one-dimensional dipolar gases) or many-body localized. The second main goal is to characterize the probability distributions of physical observables in slowly thermalizing systems, focusing on many-body localization. Such distributions are expected to be fat-tailed; this project will characterize these tails, and their implications for observables such as the nonlinear response. The third main goal is to explore applications of non-thermalizing systems (again, focusing on the many-body localized case) for quantum information science, quantum metrology, and quantum thermodynamics. This project will take place at the College of Staten Island, which has a diverse student body including large proportions of first-generation college students, underrepresented minorities, and recent immigrants. Educational activities will include curricular development to make physics relevant for this wide range of students, including the reorientation of standard courses to emphasize general-purpose computational methods, which are useful in a wide range of professions, as well as development of new courses on complex systems. Outreach to the broader community will involve developing a mini museum that will illustrate universal phenomena in everyday life through simple interactive exhibits.

非技术总结材料研究的部门和物理部门为该职业奖贡献了资金，该奖项支持理论研究和教育对许多相互作用粒子构成的量子系统动态。该项目探索了量子系统，这些系统需要花费多长时间才能接近热平衡（或者在某些极端情况下永远不会达到平衡）。平衡的方法涉及系统“忘记”有关其初始状态的信息。例如，如果最初将气体放在管子的左侧，然后允许在整个管中散布，它最终会忘记它启动的哪一侧。这种明显的“忘记”与量子力学的定律相矛盾，实际上，该法律保存信息；人们认为，有关初始状态的信息从未真正被遗忘，而是存储在复杂的，实验性地不可接近的相关性中。一般来说，信息如何从可测量的相关性迁移到隐藏相关性。该项目从与眼镜有关的物质状态的角度来解决了一个普遍的问题，其中“忘记”非常慢。在中间的制度中，系统的某些部门处于平衡状态，而其他系统则远非如此。需要将常规统计力学推广的新理论方法来表征这些中级制度。开发此类方法并使用它们来识别这些中级制度的独特特征是该项目的主要目标。该项目的另一个主要重点是将缓慢平衡的系统用于新的量子应用，包括热发动机，量子记忆和传感器。由于平衡对应于信息的遗忘或隐藏信息，因此很长的时间均衡的系统很长时间均衡。该观察结果是该项目将要探讨的各种应用程序的基础。该项目将在史坦顿岛学院举行，该学院拥有多样化的学生团体，其中包括大量第一代大学生，代表性不足的少数民族和最近的移民。教育活动将包括课程发展，以使物理学与这些广泛的学生相关，包括重新定位标准课程以强调通用计算方法，这些计算方法在广泛的专业中很有用，以及开发复杂系统的新课程。向更广泛的社区推广将涉及开发一个迷你博物馆，该博物馆将通过简单的互动展览来说明日常生活中普遍现象。技术总结材料研究和物理学划分为该职业奖贡献了资金，该奖项支持有关相互作用的量子系统属性的理论研究和教育，这些量子系统对热平衡的速度逐渐缓慢地接近：即热化时间尺度的系统比其他内部时间表更长。其中包括几乎可以集成或几乎多体局部化的孤立系统以及相关的开放系统。该项目的主要目标是三重：开发适合缓慢热化系统的计算方法，以表征此类系统中分布功能的独特非热功能，并将这些独特的特征应用于量子技术。第一个主要目标是开发描述缓慢热化系统动力学的方法。由于纠缠的增长，现有方法通常仅限于短时间和/或小型系统。该项目将开发针对缓慢热化系统的中间和晚期行为量身定制的方法。具体而言，预先层化制度的现场理论以及均值和重量化组技术，这些技术利用相互作用和热化之间的时间尺度分离来描述热行为的出现。这些方法将应用于涉及几乎可以集成的超速原子系统（一维偶极气）或多体局部化的实验。第二个主要目标是表征慢慢热化系统中物理可观察物的概率分布，重点是多体定位。预计这种分布将是脂肪的；该项目将表征这些尾巴，及其对可观察到的物品（例如非线性响应）的影响。第三个主要目标是探索用于量子信息科学，量子计量学和量子热力学的非热量系统的应用（同样，重点关注多体局部案例）。该项目将在史坦顿岛学院举行，该学院拥有多样化的学生团体，其中包括大量第一代大学生，代表性不足的少数民族和最近的移民。教育活动将包括课程发展，以使物理学与这些广泛的学生相关，包括重新定位标准课程以强调通用计算方法，这些计算方法在广泛的专业中很有用，以及开发复杂系统的新课程。向更广泛的社区推广将涉及开发一个迷你博物馆，该博物馆将通过简单的互动展览来说明日常生活中普遍现象。