December 8th, 2021 @ 3:00pm. Join Live Event.
ABSTRACT:
Quantum simulators efficiently model physical systems that are intractable to solve using classical computation. Integrated photonic devices have the potential to enable compact quantum simulators that operate at extremely high bandwidths. But current photonic quantum simulators suffer from difficult practical device fabrication problems, and fundamentally lack strong photon-photon interactions required to generate many-body physics. In this talk I will discuss how the combination of quantum photonics with synthetic dimensions could solve these problems. I will show that synthetic dimensions can enable simulation of quantum transport under various gauge fields. By combining synthetic dimensions with strong light-matter interactions using cavity QED I will also show how the system can simulate strongly interacting photons in a lattice walk. Finally, I will discuss our effort towards realizing these strongly interacting photonic systems in the lab.
SPEAKER BIO:
Edo Waks is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also a member of the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaborative effort between the University of Maryland and NIST, Gaithersburg, dedicated to the study of quantum coherence. Waks received his B.S. and M.S. from Johns Hopkins University, and his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), an NSF CAREER award, and ARO Young Investigator Award for the investigation of interactions between quantum dots and nanophotonic structures. His current work focuses coherent control and manipulation semiconductor quantum dots, and their interactions with photonic crystal devices for creating strong atom-photon interactions.