Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Many of the technological advances which have fundamentally reshaped almost every aspect of society in the last 60 years are rooted in a rapid advancement of knowledge in condensed matter physics. Nothing had possibly a larger impact on our daily lives than the work of condensed matter physicists at Bell Labs in the 1940's and 1950's which set the stage for the development of modern computers and modern communication technologies. Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain were awarded the 1956 Nobel prize in physics for ``their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect''. They are seen as the founding fathers of the 'silicon valley'. Without the fundamental research performed by these condensed matter scientists, the internet and companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon would not exist. As a theoretical condensed matter physicist, my main interests are in working at the cutting edge of advancing our knowledge of quantum many-body systems, laying the foundations for future quantum technology revolutions. Correlated quantum many-body systems can show collective behaviour and novel phases of matter which do not exist in a few-body system. Interactions between particles can, for example, turn a two-dimensional ceramic into a high-temperature superconductor, or create a novel many-body localized phase in one-dimensional disordered quantum chains which can act as a memory for quantum information. My long-term vision is to develop the analytical and numerical techniques to advance our knowledge of collective behaviour in quantum many-body systems, thus setting the stage to develop future-generations quantum technologies. Any operation on a quantum system, e.g. a logical gate applied to a quantum computer or a current applied to a quantum wire, drives the system out of equilibrium. A particular focus of my research is therefore the development of efficient analytical and numerical tools to describe the non-equilibrium dynamics in many-body systems. An important role in my efforts play special, so-called integrable quantum models. For these systems many properties can be calculated analytically providing important benchmarks for other approximate analytical and numerical methods developed by my research group. For the research on integrable models I have, together with leading researchers from Wuppertal and Hannover universities, established an international Research Unit (FOR 2316) which is supported by the German Research Foundation. Several of my PhD students are spending part of their time in Germany as part of a Cotutelle program between the University of Manitoba and Wuppertal University. By fully participating in international research efforts, they will be embedded into a unique training environment - including regular conferences, soft skill trainings, and summer schools - which puts the five PhD students I am currently training on a path to become future leaders in condensed matter research.