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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Under favorable conditions, the phase difference across a Josephson junction can exhibit quantum dynamics. This insight, going back to the early 1980s, has led to the development of superconducting qubits with astonishing progress in coherence times and a growing number of applications in quantum information processing. I will review the basic physics underlying these devices and explain their use in the circuit QED architecture. A recent idea, perhaps less daunting than the construction of a full-blown quantum computer, is to harness circuit QED lattices for the purpose of quantum simulation. Zero-temperature theory predicts a quantum phase transition akin to the well-known superfluid to Mott insulator transition for the polaritons inside such a lattice. In my talk, I will discuss why the nature of polaritons actually makes circuit QED lattices interesting quantum simulators for nonequilibrium many-body physics, and explain the resulting theoretical challenges as well as our recent work on tackling them.
Host: Dibyendu Roy