Dag Group: Quantum many-body physics in and out of equilibrium

We are a newly established theoretical research group at Indiana University Bloomington. Our research resides at the intersection of atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics, condensed matter theory and quantum information science. 

Measurements are usually thought of as the act that collapses a quantum system and destroys its delicate correlations. In our recent work, we show that, when arranged in the right way, measurements alone can instead build highly entangled quantum states. We study chains of qubits where pairs are repeatedly measured, sometimes over long distances, and find a rich landscape of dynamical phases: some where entanglement grows across the whole system, some where it remains more limited, and some that cannot be understood from entanglement entropy alone. Most strikingly, in a structured measurement protocol, the system can develop long-range, volume-law entanglement while a test qubit purifies rapidly and information does not scramble. This suggests that measurement-only dynamics may offer an efficient route to preparing useful quantum states—not by driving the system with gates, but by carefully choosing how we look at it.

Now read on arXiv.

• June 2026:

  • Brendan and Mostafa officially join the group. Welcome both!

  • Hanzhen successfully presented a contributed talk on his work in progress about how we can construct chaotic cavities and use them as quantum baths for graphene electronic modes at DAMOP meeting in Rhode Island. Congrats, Hanzhen!

  • Changrui successfully presented his first poster talk at DAMOP meeting in Rhode Island on his ongoing project about dissipative cooling techniques in quantum circuits. Congrats, Changrui!

• December 2025 to May 2026:

  • Ceren visited Penn State to deliver the CAMP Seminar in Physics Department on Two tales of two worlds: vacuum-induced symmetry breaking and quantum scarring in many-body systems.

  • Abigail and Fiona's paper is out! Entanglement and information scrambling in long-range measurement-only circuits, arXiv:2604.22022. See the Highlights for more information. 

  • Changrui was awarded DAMOP Travel Award. Congrats, Changrui!

  • Ceren visited Paris to deliver an invited talk in Frontiers of Cavity QED, a workshop organized by Rice University and presented Altering Quantum Hall ferromagnet with cavity fields.

  • Ceren secured DOE QCAN grant to utilize QuEra's analog machine Aquila to carry out the meson spectroscopy project! Details about this project can be found on the page under Research Tab. 

  • Ceren was awarded Scialog Collaborative grant by Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) on a fresh new idea. First external funding! See more here.

  • Our work Emergent disorder and sub-ballistic dynamics in quantum simulations of the Ising model using Rydberg atom arrays appeared in Physical Review Letters in December. This is our first work where we operated Aquila, analog Rydberg atom array!

• See older news here.

Physical Address: 

Swain West 302, Department of Physics, 

Indiana University Bloomington

727 E Third St, Bloomington, IN 47405