Physics Colloquium: “Quantum Simulation With Excited Bands of the Bose and Fermi Hubbard Model”

The Syracuse University Department of Physics is pleased to welcome Dr. Cora Fujiwara, Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Toronto, Canada, for her talk titled, “Quantum simulation with excited bands of the Bose and Fermi Hubbard Model.”

After completing her B.A. at the University of California, Berkeley in 2012, Cora received her Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2019 where she investigated the dynamics of ultracold lithium in driven optical lattices. After leaving warm and sunny California, she is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto using quantum gas microscopy to investigate phenomena in quantum simulation of the Fermi-Hubbard model with ultracold potassium. In her spare time, Cora enjoys backpacking during the summertime, skiing during the wintertime and board games during her inside time.

Abstract: Over the past few decades, ultracold atomic gases have emerged as an exciting playground for the curious minded to probe many-body quantum physics in a technique known as quantum simulation. Here, the motion of neutral atoms in crystalline-like optical potentials enable experimentalists to realize the Hubbard model, which predicts a wide variety of condensed matter phenomena. A particularly enticing avenue of exploration is to go beyond the ground band and incorporate excited states of the lattice potential. This extension greatly enhances the range of phenomena that we can study in the laboratory. In this talk, Dr. Fujiwara shall first introduce the fundamental concepts of ultracold atoms and quantum simulation in optical lattices. Then she will discuss a few illustrative experiments probing transport and interaction phenomena and how they are enriched by considering excited bands. This will conclude with a discussion of how we can apply such systems to investigate non-equilibrium quantum physics and quantum thermalization. In parallel, she will highlight the important role of students in the research laboratory and my vision for next-generation cold atom experiments.