Quantum Control of Bose Einstein Condensates in optical lattices – QuCoBEC

The realization of Quantum Technologies which fully exploit the potential of quantum mechanics remains a major challenge, due to the fragility of quantum states. In this context the QuCoBEC research project aims at demonstrating the key role that quantum control in general and quantum optimal control in particular, can play for the development of quantum technologies. QuCoBEC brings together experimentalists, experts in the manipulation of ultracold atoms, and theoreticians specialized in quantum control, quantum algorithm and machine learning techniques. The team will develop quantum protocols to be implemented and tested on a highly tunable quantum platform of ultracold atomic gases in optical lattices. The research project is structured into different objectives extending from the optimal preparation and measurement of specific quantum states, the generation of arbitrary unitary transformations in a qudit and the implementation of standard quantum gates and algorithms, the design of robust or selective pulses for quantum sensing and metrology issues, to the application of control methods to transport problems in quantum simulation. A transverse objective is the development of theoretical tools to adapt optimal control theory and the corresponding numerical algorithms to realistic experimental limitations and constraints, and to engineer dynamics in large Hilbert spaces.
The outcomes of this project are expected to have a broad impact. The techniques developed in QuCoBEC are generic and could be readily transposed to other quantum technology platforms such as trapped ions, superconducting qubits or Rydberg atom arrays, and applied in the fields of quantum simulation and metrology.