SP Seminar @ICTP - Tuesday 17 December at 11am - Guido Pagano

[CM Section]

Joint ICTP/SISSA Statistical Physics Seminar
An TQT Event

Tuesday 17 December at 11:00 a.m.
Luigi Stasi Seminar Room, first floor Leonardo building

Speaker: Guido PAGANO
Rice University, Houston Texas, / U.S.A.

Title: From Quantum Algorithms to Out-of-Equilibrium
Phenomena in Interacting Trapped-Ion Spin Chains

Abstract:
Laser cooled trapped ions offer unprecedented control over both internal and
external degrees of freedom at the single-particle level. They are 
considered among
the foremost candidates for realizing quantum simulation and computation 
platforms
that can outperform classical computers at specific tasks. In this talk 
I will show how
linear arrays of trapped 171Yb+ ions can be used as a versatile platform 
for studying
out-of-equilibrium strongly correlated many-body quantum systems.
In particular I will present our observation of a new type of 
out-of-equilibrium
dynamical phase transition in a spin system with over 50 spins [1]. 
Moreover, I will
show our latest efforts towards scaling up the trapped-ion quantum 
simulator [2]
using a cryo-pumped vacuum chamber where we can trap more than 100 ions
indefinitely. The reliable production and lifetime of large linear ion 
chains enabled us
to use up to 40 trapped-ion qubits to observe real-time domain wall 
confinement in an
interacting spin chain [3, 4] and to implement a Quantum Approximate 
Optimization
Algorithm (QAOA) to approximate the ground state energy of a transverse 
field Ising
model [5].

References:
[1] J. Zhang, G. Pagano, et al., Nature, 551, 601 (2017)
[2] G. Pagano et al., Quantum Sci. Technol., 4, 014004 (2019)
[3] F. Liu, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 150601 (2018)
[4] W. L. Tan, P. Becker, et al. (in preparation)
[5] G. Pagano, et al., arXiv 1906.02700 (2019)