Seminar in Condensed Matter Physics and Quantum Science

The course will cover selected topics in condensed matter physics and quantum science through a series of talks in which course professors and invited speakers will present and discuss recent advancements in the field.

Gian Marcello Andolina (CNRS and Collège de France, Paris)

Light-matter interaction in the ultra-strong coupling regime (8 h)

Quantum optics and photon states: coherent, squezed and thermal states; Wigner function.

Light-matter interaction: Rabi and Dicke models; superradiant phase transition; dipole gauge and truncation and convergence issues. Experimental platforms: quantum well intersubband transitions, hBN-encapsulated graphene.

Alessandro Braggio (CNR-NANO and NEST)

Electromagnetic environment influence on the quantum tunnelling (12 h)

Dynamical Coulomb blockade in tunnelling systems (physics). Circuit analog of a tunnel junction. Golden rule rates and tunnel heat and charge currents. Environmental effects and P(E) theory. Detailed balance. Thermostatistical average of phase fields. Charge and heat transport.Thermoelectricity. Cooper-pair tunneling and quasiparticle tunneling in superconducting tunnel junctions.

Iacopo Carusotto (INO-CNR BEC and Physics Department, University of Trento)

Non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity in fluids of atoms and of light (12 h)

Non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation vs. thermal equilibrium: analogies and differences with laser operation.
Mean-field theory and generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equations. Analogies with classical nonlinear optics: Lugiato-Lefever equation, Lamb's semiclassical laser theory, pattern formation in nonlinear dynamical systems.
Phenomenology of superfluid light: basic phenomena and novel non-equilibrium effects.Quantum hydrodynamics of quantized sound waves: spontaneous emission of entangled phonon pairs and analog black holes.
Synthetic magnetic fields: topological bulk bands and chiral edge states. BEC in topological states vs. topological lasing.

Vasco Cavina (SNS)

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics (6 h)

Non-equilibrium physics lies behind many of the challenges of modern science, from quantum computation to biophysics and condensed matter theory. The energy, entropy and information flows in all these scenarios satisfy a set of common rules that all together contribute to define the field of “non-equilibrium thermodynamics”. We introduce key concepts and results of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, including the fluctuation theorem and the Jarzynski equality, and relate these to detailed balance and entropy production in open quantum systems. Following this, we explore a distinctive non-equilibrium phenomenon known as anomalous relaxation. A prominent example of this is the Mpemba effect, where, under certain conditions, a hotter body freezes faster than a colder one. The discussion will include an overview of experimental findings and a pedagogical introduction to a simple theoretical framework for the effect in Markovian systems.