Project Details
E3 Stabilization of crystalline and topological phases using dissipation
Applicant
Professor Dr. Christof Weitenberg
Subject Area
Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 521530974
Understanding and controlling dissipation is crucial for harnessing quantum systems. Driven-dissipative setting lead to many new phenomena including the emergence of non-equilibrium steady states. Ultracold atoms constitute a versatile experimental platform for studying fundamental quantum phenomena and their isolation from environment allow to engineer open systems in a well-controlled way. In this project, we want to use driven-dissipative settings in ultracold atom systems in tailored environments for the stabilization of relevant correlated phases as non-equilibrium steady states. In particular, we will stabilize the crystalline phase emerging from collective scattering by coupling to a heat bath that absorbs the entropy from the accompanying heating process. Secondly, we will introduce local projective measurements in optical lattices as a form of local dissipation and study the predicted measurement-induced entangling-disentangling phase transition in a Hubbard regime. Finally, we will use the combination of injection from a reservoir and tailored loss processes to prepare fractional quantum Hall states in a rotating trap. The experiments will employ the state-of-the-art toolbox of preparing and coupling reservoirs and heat baths and tailoring one-body, two-body and three-body loss in ultracold-atom systems. The project will tightly collaborate with the theory projects of the research unit for optimizing the schemes and interpreting the experiments. The planned experiments will open new perspectives in the dissipative preparation of relevant states using ultracold atoms and experimentally establish new platforms including supersolids induced by collective light scattering, measurement-induced phase transitions and correlated topological states.
DFG Programme
Research Units