Principal investigator:Fabio Franchini
PI's Host institution: Ruđer Bošković Institute
Project duration:19.01.2026 to 18.01.2029.
Project Summary
This project aims to advance our understanding and control of quantum effects in many-body, strongly correlated systems. We will focus on three interconnected research directions, all related to a novel phase of quantum matter called Topological Frustration (TF), which is characterized by ground states hosting single, fractionalized, topological excitations. First, we will apply a recently introduced measure of quantum complexity to study TF in different realizations, deepening our understanding of its quantum advantage. In the second work package, we will use the properties of TF systems to design new quantum technologies. This includes developing quantum batteries that outperform non-frustrated counterparts and creating methods to encode qubits non-locally, protecting them from local noise. These systems can be applied to quantum memory or computation, and we will evaluate their merits and limitations. Finally, we will investigate the combination of TF and disorder to analyze the resulting phases. Preliminary work suggests that disorder can induce a many-body localized phase, allowing us to study long-range interactions. In other cases, it leads to an amorphous phase with properties typical of a quantum spin glass. Unlike traditional quantum spin glass models, which are complex and difficult to handle in large systems, TF-based models are simpler and more tractable. This opens new possibilities for studying this intriguing and elusive quantum state.
