Communication

While seconded to Ulm in March 2024, the Q-DYNAMO coordinator Dr. T. Kirova presented to the Institute for Quantum Matter staff her current research topic ‘Quantum and Nonlinear Optics in Atomic and Molecular Systems’. The lecture covered three separate research directions on ‘Azimuthal Dependence of Electromagnetically Induced Grating in a Double V-type Atomic System near Plasmonic Nanostructure’, ‘Dipole-Dipole Interaction Strength and Dipole Blockade Radius using Förster resonances in Rb atoms’, as well as ‘High-fidelity quantum control via Autler-Townes splitting’. Discussions with the participants were held and common research interests were found, especially in the realm of Rydberg physics and Autler-Townes effect for controlling ultracold chemical reactions

Participants of the Q-DYNAMO project on 23.09.2024 attend the Temple University Physics Colloquium onganized by the Molecular Quantum Optics Group of Prof. A. Marjatta Lyyra. 
Special talk was given by Prof. Ennio Arimondo from University of Pisa on "Superadiabatic control of quantum systems".
Other attendees included well known researchers in quantum optics and atomic and molecular physics from Lehigh University, as well as the National Institute of Standarts and Technology.
Rita Veilande from the Riga group, who is currently completing her 2-month secondment to Temple University, also attended the seminar

Q-DYNAMO Graduate student seminar on quantum opticsIvan Saychenko, a PhD student from University of Parma who is currently completing his 2.5 months secondment to Dr.Mark Sadgrove's group at Tokyo University of Science, presented his research topic "Numerical methods for evolving non linear Schrödinger equations" at a "Graduate student seminar on quantum optics" on 31.10.2024. The target group of the seminar was other graduate students, with the aim of encourage extensive discussions about the presented topics and the used scientific methods. Members of Q-DYNAMO teams from Tokyo, Parma, Pisa and Riga also attended the seminar in person or online

The end of the first year of the project was commemorated by the "1st Q-DYNAMO Workshop on Quantum Optics" organised on 09.12.2024 by Prof. Mark Sadgrove at Tokyo University of Science (TUS). The Q-DYNAMO leaders from Japan Prof. Mark Sadgrove and Prof. Kali Nayak, as well as the project coordinator Dr. Teodora Kirova (seconded to TUS) presented the current research topics of each team.  A special invited lecture was read by Prof. Kaoru Sanaka from TUS. The event was organised in a "summer school format" both with on-site and online participants with extensive time after the lectures, particularly dedicated for open discussions. It was targeted especially at graduate students to encourage them to participate in debates about various scientific topics, theoretical and experimental methods. Members of Q-DYNAMO teams from Tokyo, Ulm and Riga also attended the seminar in person or online. Around 10 people were present on-site, while majority of interested online participants (around 10) were from different research groups at University of Latvia

Prof. Sandro Wimberger, leader of the Parma team, currently completing his secondment to the Atomic Physics Laboratory at University of Otago, presented his research topic ‘Quantum control by fast driving’ on 05.02.2025. Members of New Zealand teams attended the seminar in person, while 11 international researchers from Latvia and Germany participated online

To kick-off the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ2025), the ‘2^nd Q-DYNAMO Workshop on Quantum Control’ was organised on 11.02.2025 at the University of Otago. Two talks on their current research directions were given by the leader of Otago team Prof. Mikkel Andersen, as well as Dr. Rita Veilande from University of Latvia (seconded to Dunedin). Special presentation was given by PhD student Robers Weiß (visiting from Heidelberg University) with the aim to encourage student participation. The workshop was targeted at graduate students audience and therefore organised in a ‘summer school format’ on-site and online. The leader of the Parma team Prof. Sandro Wimberger, who was also visiting the Otago team within the Q-DYNAMO collaboration, concluded the workshop with extensive discussions on modern theoretical and experimental topics.

During his secondment to Tokyo University of Science Prof. Johannes Denschlag gave a seminar on 05.03.2025, presenting a hot research topic from the Ulm team "Demonstrating a beam splitter for a reaction pathway in the field of cold chemistry." The event was attended by members of the TUS team, including other interested faculty, as well as the project coordinator Dr. T. Kirova who is currently on a secondment to the University of Electro-Communications

The 3^rd Q-DYNAMO Workshop = Summer School on Quantum Optics was organised at Tokyo University of Science (TUS) campus on 12.05.2025 by the leader of the Parma team Prof. Sandro Wimberger (currently on a secondment to Tokyo) and the host Prof. Mark Sadgrove. 
The workshop started with two specially invited lectures by Prof. Akira Shudo (Tokyo Metropolitan University) ‘Quantum phenomena in mixed phase space: indispensable roles of complex-domain classical dynamics’ and Prof. Yasutaka Hanada (Showa University) ‘Dynamical Tunneling in the Suris's integrable map’.
In the second part of the workshop the two organizers presented the current research topics in their groups, followed by open discussions especially targeted at graduate students’ involvement. In total around 10 members of Q-DYNAMO teams, including Tokyo and Riga, attended the seminar in person or online.
 

While on a secondment to Tokyo University of Science, the leader of the Parma team Prof. Sandro Wimberger, visited Prof. Franco Nori's group at RIKEN Japan, where he presented his current research topic 'Quantum control by fast driving' on 15.05.2025.

Abstract: The speaker presented a scheme for the systematic design of quantum control protocols based on shortcuts to adiabaticity. To fight decoherence, the adiabatic dynamics is accelerated by introducing high-frequency modulations in the control Hamiltonian, which mimic a time-dependent counterdiabatic correction. Also, several applications were presented for the high-fidelity realisation of quantum state transfers and quantum gates based on effective counterdiabatic driving, The related ideas to control many-body interactions and evolution errors by compensating terms in the Hamiltonian were sketched.

Prof. Sandro Wimberger visited Prof. Yutaka Shikano's group at University of Tsukuba, Japan on 04.06.2025, where he presented another research direction of the Parma team 'Quantum Walks with Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensate’. In addition, he had extended discussions on this topic with the interested students from the audience.

Abstract. Quantum randomness is intrinsically different from classical stochasticity since it is affected by interference and entanglement. Both make quantum walks promising candidates for the implementation of quantum computational algorithms and as a sensitive detector of interference. We present a discrete-time quantum walk that uses the momentum of ultra-cold rubidium atoms as the walk space and two internal atomic states as the "coin" degree of freedom. We demonstrate the distinctive features of a quantum walk, contrasting them to a classical walk. By manipulating either the walk or coin operator we show how the walk dynamics can be biased and even reversed. Our quantum walk provides a platform for a wide range of applications such as quantum search, the investigation of decoherence, and the observation of topological phases.