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Atoms and Photons: Quantum Technology meets Fundamental Physics
Monika Schleier-Smith, Stanford University
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The power of quantum information lies in its capacity to be non-local, encoded in correlations among entangled particles. Yet our ability to produce, understand, and exploit such correlations is hampered by the fact that the interactions between particles are ordinarily local. To circumvent this limitation in the laboratory, we let distant atoms “talk” to each other with the aid of photons that act as messengers. By tailoring the frequency spectrum of an optical control field, we program the spin-spin couplings in an array of atomic ensembles, thereby accessing frustrated interaction graphs and exotic geometries and topologies. Such advances in optical control of interactions open new opportunities in areas ranging from quantum technologies to fundamental physics. I will touch on implications for quantum optimization algorithms, quantum-enhanced sensing, and simulating quantum gravity.
About Monika Schleier-Smith
Monika Schleier-Smith is an Associate Professor in the Physics Department at Stanford University. She received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, following undergraduate studies at Harvard University, and subsequently pursued postdoctoral research at the LMU Munich and Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics. Her current research centers on advancing optical control of interactions among laser-cooled atoms, with an eye towards applications in quantum simulation, metrology, and computation. She has pioneered techniques and ideas for simulating phenomena of condensed-matter physics and quantum gravity using tools of atomic physics, and developed protocols in quantum control for entanglement-enhanced sensing. Her honors and awards include the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, President’s Early Career Award for Science and Engineering, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the I. I. Rabi Prize of the American Physical Society.
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