Jonathan Simon, Joan Reinhart Professor of Physics and Applied Physics
Director, Q-FARM, Stanford University

Leuchs-Russell-Auditorium, A.1.500, Staudtstr. 2

Location details

Abstract
In this talk I will describe experiments in my group studying fluids of light. Beginning with the analogy between photons in a lattice of transmon qubits and electrons in an ionic lattice, I will introduce experiments where we assemble (i) crystals of light using reservoir engineering and (ii) correlated fluids of light using adiabatic evolution. I will then present a protocol whereby we control what fluid state we prepare with an ancilla qubit, and use this to explore the idea of using minimal quantum computers to probe quantum matter. From here I will change gears and talk briefly about materials composed of strongly interacting optical photons constrained to topological bands, where we have assembled photonic laughlin molecules, and most recently, vortex lattices of light. Finally, I will introduce a new platform that we just developed where arrays of optical resonators are coupled to arrays of laser cooled atoms that we plan to use for next-generation photonic quantum simulation and atomic quantum computing experiments.