Quantum physics

Recent years have seen enormous experimental progress in preparing, controlling and probing quantum systems in various regimes far from thermal equilibrium. Examples include systems as ultra-cold atomic quantum gases under time-dependent perturbations, driven non-linear cavity QED systems or strongly correlated electrons in solid-state materials under ultra-fast optical excitations.

This course is about how to describe complex systems using ideas of the renormalization group (‘coarse-graining’) and statistical field theory.

Since the 80’s, laser cooling has enabled the production of sub-milliKelvin dilute atomic gases - which can be further cooled to the nanoKelvin regime.