Prof. Mark Rudner, Niels Bohr Institute

"Quantum dynamics and control in the 21st century"

Coffee and cookies will be served at 3:45pm in RLM 4.102

Abstract: Over the last 100 years, the discovery and development of quantum mechanics has transformed our understanding of matter and of the nature of the universe around us. Now it is time to take control: no longer passive observers, we seek to characterize the new types of behavior that my emerge when quantum many-body systems are driven far from equilibrium. Exploration of this regime is important both for establishing the fundamental limits of quantum behavior in large-scale many-body systems, and for enabling quantum technological applications. In this talk I will discuss new approaches for the dynamical control of both natural and "synthetic" quantum materials (as realized for example in cold atomic gases or qubit arrays), and novel types of robust many-body phenomena that may emerge in such systems. As a particular highlight, I will describe how the coupling between the collective motion of electrons in a solid and the quantum geometry of their phase space can lead to "Berryogenesis:" a non-equilibrium spontaneous symmetry breaking transition in which a driven metallic system develops a collective magnetization that both produces and is supported by a nontrivial Berry phase on the system's Fermi surface. Estimates indicate that this intriguing regime can in particular be accessed with present-day high-quality graphene devices.