Fwd: SP Seminar 14.03 @SISSA: Tommaso Roscilde

[Condensed Matter Section]

JOINT ICTP/SISSA Statistical Physics Seminar

Tuesday 14 March at 11:00 a.m.

SISSA Via Bonomea, room 128

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Speaker: Tommaso Roscilde (ENS Lyon)

Title: Quantum correlations: equilibrium and non-equilibrium aspects

Abstract:

In quantum systems correlations can take forms which are impossible in
classical mechanics. The most famous, yet elusive form of quantum
correlation is represented by entanglement, a property well defined
and investigated for pure states, and envisioned as a resource for
nearly all technological tasks harnessing quantum many-body systems.
In the real life of mixed states incoherent fluctuations appear in the
game, making the distinction of quantum vs. classical correlations
less sharp. At the same time, the exquisite level of control achieved
by experiments in atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics enables
nowadays to engineer correlated phases of quantum many-body systems,
so that the ability to characterize and control quantum correlations
becomes a fundamental question.

In this seminar I will try to offer a broad overview of the
theoretical importance of quantum correlations, starting from their
very definition - to which we contributed recently with a statistical
physics approach allowing to calculate them in generic systems, and
potentially to measure them for a large class of quantum many-body
systems relevant to experiments in AMO physics and solid-state
physics. I will moreover discuss the centrality of quantum
correlations in the dynamics that leads a closed quantum system to
relax to an equilibrium state, contrasting the case of short-range
interactions with that of long-range ones: this contrast allows to
enlighten the role of elementary excitations (and in particular of
their dispersion relation) as the "carriers" of  quantum correlations.

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