Quantum State Manipulation of Ultra-cold Atoms and Superconducting Devices

Theory is being developed and exploited for the quantum operation of laser-cooled and Bose condensed atoms as well as superconducting devices, such as Josephson junctions, and hybrid devices made by coupling atoms and superconducting devices.

The promise of quantum information and computing have increased the desire to create macroscopic systems that behave in a non-classical fashion. For these promises to be fulfilled, the time over which such a system behaves quantum mechanically and its quantum states can be manipulated coherently, needs to be increased. We are developing strategies to lengthen this time scale for gases of laser-cooled and Bose condensed atoms as well as superconducting devices, such as Josephson junctions. In conjunction with this effort, we are interested in creating "complex'' or entangled quantum states between multiple atoms and/or Josephson junctions.

This theoretical research is done in collaboration with scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute, a research partnership of NIST and the University of Maryland.

 

Directions:

*Quantum state manipulation of a small number of ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices. See the figure for an example.

*Simulation of superconducting circuits with quantum optics techniques with a focus on minimizing and understanding decoherence.

*Simulations of a hybrid device that couples atoms to superconducting circuits with the goal to develop improved quantum bits.

*Dynamics of atomic spinor Bose condensates with the goal to prepare unusual many-body states.

*Quantitative modeling of the interactions between ultra-cold atoms and molecules in the presence of electromagnetic radiation giving a foundation for designing many-atom states.