Experimental Quantum Seminar - Jacob Covey (California Institute of Technology) “Entanglement and metrology in an array of alkaline-earth atoms”

“Entanglement and metrology in an array of alkaline-earth atoms”
Quantum entanglement is the central resource in quantum information science applications including metrology, computation, and communication. A defect-free array of isolated, neutral particles with long-range, state-dependent interactions is an attractive architecture for scalable entanglement generation. In this talk, I will describe two platforms that offer long-range interactions: polar molecules, and atoms in highly excited Rydberg states. I will focus on alkaline-earth atoms (AEAs), which also possess ultra-narrow ‘clock’ transitions for precision metrology. I will describe the techniques we pioneered for cooling and imaging single AEAs in optical tweezer arrays for the first time [1,2], as well as a new platform for metrology based on single-atom readout in an atomic array clock [3]. Further, I will discuss recent observations of high-fidelity control, detection, and entanglement using Rydberg states [4]. I will close with an outlook on future research directions.
Host: Bonnie Fleming