Tue February 25, 2025 4:00 pm
CUA Seminar: Ben Lev – Replica Symmetry Breaking, Ultrametricity, and Associative Memory in an Experimental Quantum-Optical Spin Glass
Location:Harvard Ory Forum (301 A/B) in the Goel Building (60 Oxford)
Ben Lev,
Stanford University
Spin glasses are canonical examples of complex matter and form a basis for describing artificial neural networks. Advancing experimental insight into their structure requires repeatable control over microscopic degrees of freedom. I will present how we achieved this at the atomic level using a quantum-optical system comprised of ultracold gases of atoms coupled via photons resonating within a multimode cavity. We can realize all-to-all Ising and vector spin glasses whose spin configurations are microscopically detectable and controllable. This new spin glass system has allowed us to directly observe ultrametricity in a physical system and to realize an associative memory with capacity beyond that of Hopfield’s model.