PhD project: Quench Spectroscopy on a Quantum Computer
Project description
Quench spectroscopy is a relatively new way to investigate fundamental properties of many-body quantum systems. The key idea is that a quantum system is prepared in its ground state, then perturbed in some way that generates excitations. These excitations propagate dynamically throughout the system. Once we have the dynamics in space and time, we can take a Fourier transform to get the momentum and frequency behaviour of the excitations and reconstruct the elementary excitation spectrum. This offers a simple and effective route to investigate elementary excitations in quantum systems that cannot be solved analytically or numerically.
The technique has been demonstrated theoretically in one-dimensional quantum systems, as well as on both analog and digital quantum simulators. This project will go beyond the state of the art and will investigate quench spectroscopy in two-dimensional quantum systems, as well as in one-dimensional systems with long-range couplings, both of which are a classically challenging problems. We will investigate the use of Floquet engineering on quantum computers, which makes use of periodic drive to engineer effective long-range couplings on devices which only have short-range connectivity.
The overall aim will be to investigate the spreading of correlations and information in quantum systems beyond short-range models and begin exploring a new frontier of physics that has so far remained inaccessible to conventional techniques.
Project supervisor
- Dr Steven Thomson (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
The project supervisor welcomes informal enquiries about this project.
Find out more about this research area
The links below summarise our research in the area(s) relevant to this project:
- Find out more about Statistical Physics and Complexity.
- Find out more about the Institute for Condensed Matter and Complex Systems.
What next?
- Find out how to apply for our PhD degrees.
- Find out about fees and funding and studentship opportunities.
- View and complete the application form (on the main University website).
- Find out how to contact us for more information.