Joint Quantum Seminar
Wednesday, October 2nd
4:00 PM, Jefferson 250
Prof. Marcello Dalmonte, ICTP
“Quantum simulating lattice gauge theories: ‘particle physics’ with Rydberg atom arrays”
Gauge theories are the back-bone of our understanding of nature at the most fundamental level as captured by the standard model. Despite their elegance and conceptual simplicity, gauge theories have historically
represented a major computational challenge in many-body theory - including, for instance, the real-time dynamics describing heavy-ion collisions at colliders, which is inaccessible to classical simulations based on Monte Carlo sampling. These challenges have
motivated a flurry of theoretical activity over the last ten years, devoted at developing strategies for the quantum simulation of their discretized version - lattice gauge theories.
In this first part of the talk, I will review the status of the field, highlighting potential applications as well as roadblocks, and discussing the first realization of gauge theory dynamics in a trapped
ion quantum computer.
In the second part of the talk, I will show how Rydberg atoms trapped in optical tweezers offer unprecedented opportunities for the realization of lattice gauge theories in AMO systems. In particular, I will
describe how recent experiments have already realized the real-time dynamics of the lattice Schwinger model (the one-dimensional version of quantum electrodynamics) in the presence of a topological angle. Beyond demonstrating that quantum simulation of gauge theory
is an experimental reality at large scales, the analogy between Rydberg atom arrays and gauge theories provides a powerful field theoretical tool to understand the slow-dynamics describing such systems - that immediately opens the door for its generalization
to other models sharing the same field theoretical description. Finally, I will describe how other archetypical physical phenomena of lattice gauge theories - such as the effect of confinement on the dynamics, and the evolution of mesons - can be observed within
the same platform.
4:00 pm: 10-minute Talk
4:10 pm: Refreshments
4:30 pm: Prof. Dalmonte
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Clare Ploucha
Director of Programs
Harvard Quantum Initiative
17 Oxford Street, Jefferson 357
Cambridge, MA 02138
P: 617-495-3388