15.01.2019; Kolloquium
PRIZE COLLOQUIUM: Physik-Preis Dresden / Prof. Dr. Klaus Richter: Probing the Quantum Mechanics of Many-Body Chaos
Institut fuer Theoretische Physik
Universitaet Regensburg
PRIZE COLLOQUIUM
on the occasion of the presentation of the Physik-Preis Dresden awarded jointly by TU Dresden and MPIPKS to Prof. Dr. Klaus Richter, Universität Regensburg.
Program (pdf):
- 16:20 Reception
- 17:00 Opening and laudatio
- Prof. Dr. Michael Kobel, Dean of the Faculty of Physics, TU Dresden
- Prof. Dr. Jan-Michael Rost, MPIPKS
Followed by talk:
Prof. Dr. Klaus Richter 'Probing the Quantum Mechanics of Many-Body Chaos'
The dynamics and spread of quantum information in complex many-body systems is presently attracting a lot of attention across various fields, ranging from cold atom physics via condensed quantum matter to high energy physics and quantum gravity. This includes questions of how a quantum system thermalizes and phenomena like many-body interference and localization, more generally non-classicality in many-particle quantum physics. Here concepts related to the famous spin echo that are based on rewinding time provide a useful way to monitor complex quantum dynamics and its stability. Central to these developments are so-called out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs). They presently receive particular attention as sensitive probes for chaos and the temporal growth of complexity in interacting systems. We will address such phenomena using semiclassical path intergral techniques based on interfering Feynman paths, thereby bridging the classical and quantum many-body world. This enables us to compute echoes and OTOCs and interprete the results in terms of multi-particle interference, thereby including entanglement and correlation effects. Moreover, on the numerical side we devise a semiclassical method for Bose-Hubbard systems far-out-of equilibrium that allows us to calculate quantum interference effects on time scales far beyond the famous Ehrenfest/scrambling time.