Dr. Christoph Dittel

CV

Christoph Dittel is a theoretical quantum physicist from the Institute of Physics at the University of Freiburg. His interests range from quantum many-body phenomena, over quantum optics and quantum information, to the fundamentals of quantum theory. He studied at the University of Innsbruck and at Stockholm University, and holds a Ph. D. in physics from the University of Innsbruck. During his doctoral studies he was a fellow of the Austrian Academy of Science and researched on the topic of many-body quantum interference. In 2019, he moved to the University of Freiburg and became a Postdoc Fellow of the George H. Endress foundation. In his current projects he connects the fields of many-body quantum physics and quantum information theory, and explores the dynamics of ultracold atoms experiencing dipole-dipole interactions. 

Selected Publikationen

• J. Brugger, C. Dittel, and A. Buchleitner, “Many-body quantum non-Markovianity”, arXiv:2207.06100 (2022)
• A. M. Minke, A. Buchleitner, and C. Dittel, “Characterizing four-body indistinguishability via symmetries”, New Journal of Physics 23, 073028 (2021)
• C. Dittel, G. Dufour, G. Weihs, and A. Buchleitner, “Wave-particle duality of many-body quantum states”, Physical Review X 11, 031041 (2021)
• C. Dittel, G. Dufour, M. Walschaers, G. Weihs, A. Buchleitner, and R. Keil, “Totally destructive many-particle interference”, Physical Review Letters 120, 240404 (2018).

FRIAS research project

Many-body dynamics of ultracold atoms experiencing dipole-dipole interactions

In the past decades, quantum technological applications based on single-particle effects entered our everyday life (e.g., digital cameras, or lasers), and a new technological era is expected once we can control and nearly perfectly isolate quantum many-body systems. Yet, state-of-the-art experiments can implement promising small-scale systems. However, these precursors offer no vast computational advantage, but serve excellently to study how environmental influences degrade those quantum properties, which are essential for the successful application of future large-scale experiments. 

In my FRIAS project, I investigate such environmental influences in atomic many-body systems composed of ultracold strontium atoms in an optical lattice. I analyze how so-called dipole-dipole interactions induce correlations between the atoms' spatial and electronic degrees of freedom, study the structure of these correlations, and investigate the resulting damping of the atoms’ quantum dynamics (also known as many-body decoherence). Since strontium atoms are the basis for the most precise atomic clocks, understanding dipolar interactions and the associated many-body decoherence effects will help to build even better clocks, which are essential for technological developments in communication and navigation, as well as for the exploration of fundamental physics which we do not understand yet.