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Welcome to the Ultracold Quantum Gases Laboratory at the University of Alberta!
Using the tools of atomic physics, we study the fundamentals of quantum many-body physics and how to apply these ideas to developing quantum technologies. We are part of the Department of Physics' Condensed Matter & AMO group.
The University of Alberta respectfully acknowledges that it is located in ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan) on Treaty 6 territory, and respects the histories, languages, and cultures of First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and all First Peoples of Canada, whose presence continues to enrich our vibrant community.
At DAMOP 2023, Lindsay had the chance to present at the Graduate Student Symposium. Here are here slides and some accompanying notes:
Recent Highlights
Recent Highlights
Jan 2025: Welcome to new PhD student Bruno De Carvalho Barros and Mitacs MSc intern Amaru Moya!
Oct 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Anindya Rastogi on his successful PhD defence, for the thesis "Broadband, on-demand optical memories based on alkali-atom-ensemble for photonic quantum technologies"!
Sept 2024: Congratulations to Bahar Babaei on her successful MSc defence!
Sept 2024: Welcome to new MSc student, Ana, and a fond farewell to PDF Arina Tashchilina, who is of to IQOQI in Innsbruck!
14 May 2024: At the invitation of the University of Alberta's Indigenous Outreach team, five of us travelled to Alexis Nakota Sioux First Nation for the day to present "Light and Optics" hands-on workshops to the elementary school classes
May 2024: Summer is here, and with it, we welcome Katie, Sophie, and Travis to the lab!
Mar 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Benjamin D. Smith for successfully defending his thesis "Nonlinear interactions using neutral atomic gases"!
Jan 2024: Nick shares some insight with Physics World about machine learning and cold atoms experiments
Jan 2024: Our paper Investigation of Floquet engineered non-Abelian geometric phase for holonomic quantum computing is published in Phys. Rev. Review -- our first official collaboration with the Maciejko- Marsiglio theory team!
Jan 2024: Congratulations to Joseph Lindon and Nick Milson for successful MSc defences, on the theses "A Qutrit in Ultracold Rubidium-87" (Lindon) and "Reinforcement Learning for Optimization and Control of Ultracold Quantum Gas Production" (Milson)
Dec 2023: Congratulations to Dr. Logan W. Cooke on successfully defending his PhD thesis, Artificial Gauge Fields in Ultracold Atomic Ensembles!
Dec 2023: Our paper on reinforcement learning as an experimental tool for consistent and high atom-number production is published in Machine Learning: Science and Technology
Nov 2023: The microwave atom-optics team's recent paper Microwave-to-optical conversion in a room-temperature 87Rb vapor with frequency-division multiplexing control is published in Communications Physics
Mar 2023: Our work on ultracold qutrits in 87Rb, is published in Phys. Rev. Applied: Complete Unitary Qutrit Control in Ultracold Atoms
... see past News
Using reinforcement learning to produce stable and high-number atom clouds
Using reinforcement learning to produce stable and high-number atom clouds
On our Quantum Simulation apparatus, we implemented a reinforcement learning agent to optimize our ultracold quantum gas production at the early stages of the cycle. We find that reinforcement learning performs better than supervised machine-learning approaches, and results in a consistent, large atom number.
Nicholas Milson, Arina Tashchilina, Tian Ooi, Anna Czarnecka, Zaheen F. Ahmad, Lindsay J. LeBlanc. Accepted in Mach. Learn.: Sci. Technol. 4 045057 (2023) [Journal Link][arXiv:2308.05216]
Investigating Floquet engineered non-Abelian geometric phase for holonomic quantum computing
Investigating Floquet engineered non-Abelian geometric phase for holonomic quantum computing
In our Quantum Simulations project, we experimentally demonstrate Floquet-driving to generate non-Abelian geometric phases, which opens up a new way of doing holonomic quantum computing and producing novel artificial gauge fields.
Logan W. Cooke, Arina Tashchilina, Mason Protter, Joseph Lindon, Tian Ooi, Frank Marsiglio, Joseph Maciejko, Lindsay J. LeBlanc. Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 013057 (2024) [Journal Link] [arxiv.org:2307.12957]
Microwave-to-optical conversion in a room-temperature vapour of Rb
Microwave-to-optical conversion in a room-temperature vapour of Rb
In our microwave atom-optics project, a warm atom sample is used as a non-linear medium to facilitate three-wave mixing between optical and microwave signals, and the resulting coherent microwave-to-optical conversion maps a microwave signal to a large, tunable 550(30) MHz range of optical frequencies using room-temperature 87Rb atoms. With simultaneous conversion of a multi-channel input microwave field to corresponding optical channels, we demonstrate phase-correlated amplitude control of select channels, resulting in complete extinction of one of the channels, providing an analog to a frequency domain beam splitter across five orders of magnitude in frequency.
Benjamin D. Smith, Bahar Babaei, Andal Narayanan, Lindsay J. LeBlanc
Comm. Phys. 6, 338 (2023)
[Journal link] [arxiv.org:2305.19221]
Complete arbitrary control of ultracold qutrits
Complete arbitrary control of ultracold qutrits
In our Quantum Simulations project, isolate and manipulate three levels in 87Rb's manifold of states to realize ultracold qutrits. We demonstrate two approaches to arbitrary single-qutrit gates and show how a dual-tone microwave can be used to connect states and perform gate operations, even when the states are not directly coupled.
Joseph Lindon, Arina Tashchilina, Logan W. Cooke, Lindsay J. LeBlanc Phys. Rev. Applied 19, 034089 (2023) [Journal link][arXiv:2208.00045]
Harnessing superradiance for fast/broadband quantum memory
Harnessing superradiance for fast/broadband quantum memory
In our Quantum Memory project, we explored the regime of fast and broadband signal storage by moving to the superradiant regime of collective emission in the rubidium vapour, where the output signals emit on timescales faster than the atoms' natural lifetime.
Anindya Rastogi, Erhan Saglamyurek, Taras Hrushevskyi, Lindsay J. LeBlanc. Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 120502 (2022) [Journal Link][arxiv.2112.09261]
For internal group information: LeBlanc group information
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