Abstract:

Non-equilibrium systems have been of tremendous interest both in physics and engineering. Recent experimental breakthroughs in atomic, condensed matter physics and optics have given birth to new paradigms for studying out-of-equilibrium quantum systems. Understanding such phenomena require an inter-disciplinary approach uniting ideas from these diverse fields.
For an isolated Bose gas, I will present a deep connection between the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class of stochastic dynamics [1]. In a different scenario, an ensemble of atoms placed in a leaky optical cavity and pumped with a laser constitutes an exotic light-matter open quantum system. I will describe the non-equilibrium aspects close to an interesting phase transition in such driven-dissipative systems [2]. I will also propose protocols to prepare light-mediated entangled states [3] of matter by optimally designing the laser and cavity in other hybrid light-matter systems. Our work shows that far-from-equilibrium many-body physics is a rich field where theory and experiments across several disciplines thrive together.