The MCQST Colloquium Series features interdisciplinary talks given by visiting international speakers. The monthly colloquium covers topics spanning all MCQST research units and will be broadcast live via Zoom for audiences worldwide. The main goal of the series is to create the framework for idea exchange, to strengthen links with QST leading groups worldwide, as well as to act as an integral part of the local educational environment.

MCQST Colloquium: Alex Altland

We are excited to invite you to the colloquium talk by Alex Altland (University of Cologne).

Agenda

14:00 | Teaser talk by TBA on "TBA"

14:15 | Coffee break

14:30 | Colloquium talk by Alex Altland on “The Ergodic Paradigm in Quantum Circuits”

The Ergodic Paradigm in Quantum Circuits

The ergodic regime of quantum chaos defines a powerful universality paradigm, establishing connections between otherwise disparate areas of physics. In the first part of this talk, we review this almost century-old concept in a language adapted to modern applications in many-body quantum chaos, condensed matter physics, and holography.

In the second part, we turn to applications in synthetic quantum matter and quantum circuits, where the late-time chaotic regime features in different roles: as a nuisance, destabilizing the operation of quantum computing devices; as a resource for engineering quantum states and demonstrating quantum advantage; and as a general dynamical principle governing the evolution of non-integrable unitary circuit networks. We discuss how these seemingly different manifestations of quantum chaos originate from common physical principles of irreversible quantum-state evolution and entanglement generation.

About Alex Altland

Alexander Altland studied physics in Marburg and Heidelberg and received his doctorate from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg in 1991. Following postdoctoral appointments at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and the University of Cambridge, he was appointed assistant professor at Ruhr University Bochum in 1998 and became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cologne in 2001.

Altland has served as spokesperson of two Collaborative Research Centres (CRCs), Symmetries and Universality in Mesoscopic Systems and Entangled States of Matter, and currently is spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence ML4Q — Matter and Light for Quantum Computing.

Throughout his career, Altland has been drawn to randomness and chaos as sources of universality. Many-body systems can be intimidatingly complex, and it is often difficult to distinguish between system-specific details and genuinely universal phenomena. Averaging over ensembles of microscopically different but macroscopically equivalent representatives allows phenomena governed by principles such as symmetry, conservation laws, dimensionality, or topology to come into sharper focus. His group has pursued manifestations of this principle in a wide range of contexts, ranging from mesoscopic condensed matter systems and topological quantum matter to holography and, more recently, the physics of quantum circuits.

Join in-person or via Zoom

https://lmu-munich.zoom.us/j/69761439704
Meeting ID: 697 6143 9704, Passcode: mcqst2526