LaGaTYb SIGNED

Project "LaGaTYb" data sheet

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 Project objective

Gauge theories establish a connection between seemingly different physical areas, ranging from high-energy to condensed matter physics and topological quantum computing. Very often gauge theories are difficult to study theoretically in particular in the strongly-interacting regime, where perturbative methods are not reliable. Despite the remarkable progress offered by numerical methods, such as classical Monte Carlo simulations, the sign problem imposes severe limitations, for instance, regarding real-time dynamics. This motivates the search for alternative approaches. Recent progress in the control of engineered quantum systems has revitalized Feynmans's idea of quantum simulation, which naturally does not suffer from the sign problem because its working principle is quantum mechanical. Ultracold atoms in optical lattices have proven powerful in studying important condensed matter models and intriguing results have been achieved in simulating static background gauge fields. This establishes a link to more general gauge theories, yet these are out-of-reach due to complex requirements e.g. regarding the implementation of gauge and matter field degrees of freedom. Achieving significant progress in this direction requires a radically new approach. I propose to develop a novel experimental platform that combines two unique features: precise local control as typical for ion traps and scalability of cold-atom setups to generate advanced optical lattices with locally controllable tunnel couplings. It will facilitate the implementation of a broad class of gauge theories, so-called quantum link models, with fermionic atoms, where matter and gauge fields are interpreted as different lattice sites. The proposed model exhibits paradigmatic phenomena of quantum electrodynamics and doped Mott insulators in connection to high temperature superconductors and provides a roadmap to study more complex non-Abelian models based on the nuclear spin states of Alkaline-earth-like atoms.