Non-Hermiticity as a resource for quantum simulations, quantum sensing, and decoherence mitigation
13 - 30th June 2022
Biography
Professor Yogesh Joglekar is a theorist with an interest in working with experimentalists. His expertise is in quantum simulations and open quantum systems. He is a strong proponent of, and leader in, involving students of all ages in original research. His research is supported by the US National Science Foundation. He was a Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics (KITP) scholar (2013-2015), and held visiting professor positions at Washington University in St. Louis (2019) and University of Bristol (2013).
Summary
Relaxing the assumption of Hermiticity in quantum physics leads to interesting new theoretical phenomena. A subset of non-Hermitian theories of quantum physics includes that of Parity-Time (PT) symmetry that describe active systems with equal amounts of loss and gain, or passive systems with varying amounts of loss. The uses of such systems include potential improvements in photon-pair sources and enhanced sensitivity of quantum sensors. The amount of loss or gain in such a PT-symmetric system could also be used as a resource for controlling decoherence.
However, simulating and experimentally creating PT-symmetric quantum systems has proven a difficult and inefficient task as a result of either loss in passive systems, or quantum noise or inefficiency in active systems. Newer methods aim to get around this barrier by using nonlinear gaussian optics as an alternative type of PTsymmetric system to the typically considered systems with loss and gain. This has the advantages of those systems only can be created natively using nonlinear processes in optics. This allows for both more efficient simulations of PT-symmetric systems, as well as their experimental realizations. These methods have yet to be experimentally tested and verified before being used to improve photon sources or quantum sensing.
This project aims to use these and other effective non-Hermitian systems to demonstrate photon generation and quantum sensing using a PT-symmetric system as well as looking at both experimental and theoretical methods for improving and making larger PT-symmetric systems.
Professor Joglekar is hosted by Dr Anthony Laing, Physics.
Planned events include:
Public Lecture
Exploring open quantum and classical systems with kids
Departmental Lecture
Parity-time (PT) symmetric systems: theory and experiments.
Postgraduate Seminar
Time-delay induced transitions in an anti-PT system of coupled lasers
