Engineering many-body dissipative dynamics with ultracold atoms in optical lattices

Experiments with ultra-cold atoms have opened opportunities to explore new regimes in many-body quantum dynamics. In addition to offering exceptional control and microscopic understanding over coherent dynamics, the nature of these systems offer the possibility to engineer dissipative dynamics. Because of a large separation of frequency scales, we are very often able to derive Markovian dissipative models under well-controlled approximations, leading to many-body quantum master equations in Lindblad form.

I will give an introduction to recent work in this area, beginning with outlining what is possible in experiments, and the microscopic models to which they correspond. I will then talk  about our recent theoretical work on understanding and controlling dissipative dynamics in these systems, including how we can solve some of the master equations using techniques based around Matrix Product States. In terms of physics, I will especially touch on the possibility to drive the system dissipatively into desired many-body states, and the robustness of key features of many-body localised states in the presence of dissipation.