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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 2026: Welcome (back!) to Anna Prus-Czarnecka (MSc) and Travis Hosack (PhD), starting new degrees with the lab
Jan 2026: Congratulations to Travis for successfully defending his MSc thesis "Superradiance-Enhanced Heralded Single Photon Generation in Cold Alkali Ensembles"
July 2025: Submitted warm-atom magnetometer for publication and to arxiv.org, "Microwave-optical double-resonance vector magnetometry with warm Rb atoms"
May 2025: Welcome to summer research students Adna, Grace, Katie, Ronak, and Sian!
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!
... 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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