Speaker
Lode Pollet
Description
Quantum simulators are special purpose devices designed to
provide physical insight in a specific quantum problem that
is hard to study in the laboratory and impossible on a computer.
However, before they can be used they require calibration.
For cold atomic systems, quantum Monte Carlo simulations
have played a key role there. They established a few years
ago that the thermodynamic properties of the experimental
system are in one-to-one agreement with the simulations of
the corresponding model. The synergy between the two
approaches has dramatically progressed since then, to each
other’s benefice: In the main part of this talk, I will
focus on the dynamical properties of a U(1) critical system
in (2+1) dimensions focusing on the existence of the
amplitude mode or Higgs particle, and on the optical
conductivity, which we compare against predictions from the
AdS/CFT correspondence. Finally, I will discuss some open
problems for this approach to quantum simulation.
