Ana Maria Rey
A new national quantum research center draws on JILA Fellows' and their expertise to make the United States an international leader in quantum technology.
Famous thought experiment Schrödinger’s Cat posits that a quantum system can be in two opposing states simultaneously—a specific type of superposition. Creating cat states in a large number of atoms has been difficult for physicists. The Rey Theory Group has developed a new means of preparing these cat states in the state-of-the-art strontium optical atomic clock. Cat states could in turn improve the sensitivity of the clock beyond what is possible with independent atoms.
Scientists understand the rules of equilibrium systems well, but non-equilibrium systems are still a mystery. JILA's Thompson Laboratory and Rey Theory Group collaborated to study how new types of phases of matter emerge in a non-equilibrium system made of atoms and light. This reveals brand new insights into organization principles in out-of-equilibrium matter, and could shed light on how complex systems like black holes behave.
Strontium is an incredible element at the center of quantum physics tools and studies—most famously optical atomic clocks. While strontium atoms have one very long-lived excited state (which lives more than 100 seconds), they also have nicely accessible excited states. Those excited states are easier to access, but they are short-lived. A new proposal from the Rey Theory Group suggests a way to reach a dark state where the atoms can live in this excited state forever, opening new opportunities for clock technologies.
For the first time, JILA scientists are able to observe dynamical phase transitions in an out-of-equilibrium system. They also found that they could undo the dynamical changes, reversing the experiment to where it started, which has great implications for understanding how the quantum world behaves and acts as a model for superconductors.
JILA Fellow Ana Maria Rey has been named a finalist for the prestigious Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists.
The holy grail of modern quantum science is to make a stable quantum computer. Now an experiment is on its way to create a quantum computer that is stable and can last longer using the sophisticated clock at JILA.
JILA researchers have proposed a simple experiment to realize and study rapid scrambling, the process by which quantum information spreads throughout a complex system and becomes inaccessible to simple local measurements, thus becoming apparently lost. Understanding rapid scrambling, as well as how it connects to chaos and entanglement, is key not only for building quantum computers but also for explaining open question about our universe such as the behavior of black holes and quantum gravity.
The chaos within a black hole scrambles information. Gravity tugs on time in tiny, discrete steps. A phantom-like presence pervades our universe, yet evades detection. These intangible phenomena may seem like mere conjectures of science fiction, but in reality, experimental comprehension is not far, in neither time nor space. Astronomical advances in quantum simulators and quantum sensors will likely be made within the decade, and the leading experiments for black holes, gravitons, and dark matter will be not in space, but in basements – sitting on tables, in a black room lit only by lasers.
Researchers at JILA and around the world are starting a grand adventure of precisely controlling the internal and external quantum states of ultracold molecules after years of intense experimental and theoretical study. Such control of small molecules, which are the most complex quantum systems that can currently be completely understood from the principles of quantum mechanics, will allow researchers to probe the quantum interactions of individual molecules with other molecules, investigate what happens to molecules during collisions, and study how molecules behave in chemical reactions.