TRR 185:  Open System Control of Atomic and Photonic Matter (OSCAR)

• Subject Area: Physics
• Term: since 2016
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 277625399

The transregional collaborative research center 185, OSCAR, ”Open System Control of Atomic and Photonic Matter” investigates model systems of ultracold atoms, ions and photons with the central scientific goal to develop new fundamental concepts and techniques for the control of quantum matter exploiting tailored environments and external drive. Open-system control aims at the generation, manipulation and stabilization of fascinating and useful quantum states, as well as the steering of collective processes. The underlying motivation is that using the external control, quantum states and non-equilibrium phases of matter can be created which are difficult to reach or not at all existing in closed systems. Moreover new concepts arise from open-system control that make otherwise fragile quantum states and processes robust. With this OSCAR provides a fundamentally new approach which is of particular importance in the current ”Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum” era of quantum technologies. To understand the mechanisms of open-system control and to develop universal concepts and tools for its exploitation OSCAR has chosen atoms and photons as main experimental platforms. The ultimate goal is to develop concepts which will also be transferable to new platforms such as solid-state nano devices. The research program of OSCAR is structured in three complementary areas. In a bottom-up approach, research area A explores the interplay of individual or few-body quantum systems and engineered environments, with a maximum degree of microscopic control. In a top-down approach, research area B focuses on the generation, control and manipulation of collective states and dynamical processes of complex many-body systems. Finally, the combination of open-system control and topological protection to stabilize quantum states and processes is the central subject of research area C. A natural and important generalization of open-system control, and a central topic in the third funding period, is the manipulation and stabilization of complex processes. Steering processes by tailored environments is still in the beginning of its exploration and OSCAR will push actively towards this direction to establish fundamental concepts for transport properties and engines controlled by the environment or external drives.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• International Connection: United Kingdom

Current projects

• A02 - Entanglement by environment control in optical cavities (Project Heads Köhl, Michael ;  Meyer, Hendrik-Marten )
• A04 - Dynamical bath control with localized impurities in a quantum gas (Project Heads Schneider, Imke ;  Widera, Artur )
• A05 - Time-periodic driving: Floquet state engineering with interactions and dissipation (Project Head Eggert, Sebastian )
• A06 - Exploiting chaos for open-system control (Project Head Anglin, James )
• A07 - Precision control of single or few impurities in a fermionic bath (Project Head Stellmer, Simon )
• A08 - Strongly correlated few-body states of Rydberg polaritons (Project Head Hofferberth, Ph.D., Sebastian )
• B01 - Reservoir control of an open photon Bose-Einstein condensate system (Project Heads Kroha, Johann ;  Schmitt, Julian ;  Vewinger, Frank ;  Weitz, Martin )
• B02 - Dissipative dynamics of strongly interacting, optically driven Rydberg systems (Project Heads Fleischhauer, Michael ;  Niederprüm, Thomas ;  Ott, Herwig )
• B03 - Ultracold Quantum Gases in Spatially and Temporally Engineered Environments (Project Heads Kollath, Corinna ;  Ott, Herwig )
• B04 - Dynamical and environment control of ultracold atomic Fermi gases (Project Heads Kollath, Corinna ;  Köhl, Michael ;  Sheikhan, Ameneh )
• B05 - The BEC-BCS crossover in a gas with controlled disorder (Project Head Widera, Artur )
• B06 - Emerging phases in strongly coupled driven-dissipative photon gases (Project Heads von Freymann, Georg ;  Pelster, Axel ;  Vewinger, Frank )
• C01 - Dynamical topological phases and topology-stabilized motors (Project Heads Anglin, James ;  Fleischhauer, Michael )
• C04 - Periodically driven many-body and dissipative systems: Topological stabilization of transport (Project Heads Kroha, Johann ;  Linden, Stefan )
• C05 - Gauge fields and topological states with cold atoms (Project Head Weitz, Martin )
• C06 - Interaction-induced topological phases of non-equilibrium excitations in lattices (Project Heads Fleischhauer, Michael ;  Jörg, Christina ;  Köhl, Michael ;  Ott, Herwig )
• C07 - Dynamical signatures of topological states in photon condensates (Project Heads Luitz, David ;  Schmitt, Julian )
• MGK - Integrated Graduate College i-OSCAR (Project Heads Fleischhauer, Michael ;  Linden, Stefan )
• Z - Central Coordination Project (Project Heads Fleischhauer, Michael ;  Meschede, Dieter )

Completed projects

• A01 - Controlled few-particle quantum states in an optical cavity QED system (Project Heads Meschede, Dieter ;  Ratschbacher, Lothar )
• A03 - Plasmon mediated interaction of quantum emitters (Project Head Linden, Stefan )
• C02 - Topological phases in discrete-time quantum walks (Project Heads Alberti, Ph.D., Andrea ;  Meschede, Dieter )

• Applicant Institution: Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau
• Co-Applicant Institution: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
• Spokespersons: Professor Dr. Michael Fleischhauer, since 7/2020; Professor Dr. Dieter Meschede, until 6/2020