HYBRID: Taming collective quantum dynamics for quantum simulations

This lecture will be held in presence in the Anna-von-Helmholtz-Bau of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Berlin-Charlottenburg and can be followed online at the same time. Please use the links above to register your personal participation or to receive the access data for online participation.

Topic:

JQuantum simulators are engineered quantum systems used to investigate many-body physics in controlled conditions. The rapid experimental progress in realizing such systems highlights formidable theoretical challenges in understanding their non-equilibrium behaviour and in how to control them accurately to fully leverage their potential. I will discuss some of these challenges and our efforts to tackle them. The latter include approaches to dynamically realize topological systems, whose excitations behave like exotic particles known as anyons, and to prepare their correlated ground state through controlled dissipation. I will further discuss how the intrinsic non-equilibrium conditions may enable the emergence of novel quantum phenomena.

CV:

Francesco studied physics at the University of Trieste. He obtained his PhD at the University of Parma in 2020, with research partially conducted at Imperial College London. After a one-year postdoc in Parma, he moved to the Technical University of Berlin in 2021 as a postdoctoral researcher and, later, teaching assistant. Since April 2025, he leads the Emmy Noether junior group “Theory of controlled quantum many-body systems” at the Technical University of Berlin. In 2025, he was awarded the Karl-Scheel prize of the Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin. Francesco investigates the theoretical physics of nonequilibrium quantum systems and its relation to the fields of quantum control, quantum simulation and quantum information processing.

Following the lecture, there will be a get-together where participants can exchange ideas with each other over pizza and drinks.

The event is sponsored by the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation.