Leaders
Juliette Billy 
, Michele Filippone & Sylvain Ravets
Aims of this thematic
Many situations in physics or even in mathematics can be cast into a quantum many-body problem, i.e. can be described by considering an ensemble of interacting individual particles. These problems are usually very hard, if not impossible, to solve by any classical methods. The idea of quantum simulation was introduced in the early 80’s by Richard Feynman. It consists in building in the lab fully controllable, artificial quantum systems ruled by the equations of the problem one wants to solve: by measuring the properties of these systems, for example their ground-state or their out-of-equilibrium dynamics, one accesses the solution of the problem of interest. This approach has been essentially theoretical for years, but the amazing developments on the control over individual quantum systems achieved in the last decade now make it experimentally possible. Its range of applications goes from fundamental physics problem (high-Tc superconductivity, quantum magnetism, transport in disorder media, to name a few) to more applied situations such as optimization problems in industry, or on a longer term, quantum chemistry or the design of new kind of materials.
For more information, see for example : I.M. Georgescu, S. Ashhab and F. Nori « Quantum Simulation », Review of Modern Physics, vol. 86, p. 153 (2014)