QSE Quantum Seminar: Replica symmetry breaking in a quantum-optical vector spin glass

Please join us for the QSE Center Quantum Seminar with Ronen Kroeze from Stanford University and LMU Munich, who will give the talk "Replica symmetry breaking in a quantum-optical vector spin glass" on Friday August 16.
Location: MA A3 30

PLEASE NOTE: Unlike past seminars, this will take place from 15:00-16:00. Snacks and desserts will be served. All PhDs, postdocs, students, and PIs are welcome to join us.

TITLE: "Replica symmetry breaking in a quantum-optical vector spin glass"

ABSTRACT: Multimode optical cavity QED provides a versatile platform with which to explore quantum many-body physics in driven-dissipative systems. Confocal cavities host all-to-all, sign-changing, photon-mediated spin interactions that enable study of spin glasses in a quantum optical setting. Using the density wave phases of multiple BECs located inside the cavity as pseudospin degrees of freedom, this system realizes an unusual type of transverse-field vector spin glass. Individual spin configurations are observed in cavity emission and reveal the emergence of replica symmetry breaking and nascent ultrametric structure as signatures of spin-glass order. The driven-dissipative nature of the system manifests as a nonthermal Parisi distribution, in qualitative correspondence with Monte Carlo simulations. These results enable further microscopic study of associative memories and spin glass physics, potentially down to the quantum-spin-level.