Controllable Quantum Many-Body Spin Systems

In this talk, I describe my work demonstrating the versatility of trapped ions as a platform for studying quantum many-body spin systems. I motivate the work as part of an effort to expand the exquisite experimental control afforded by single quantum systems to much larger Hilbert spaces, and give an overview on the specific context of using trapped ions to emulate spin chains with controllable long-range interactions and site-resolved measurements. I present a number of advances in the flexibility of the accessible many-body Hamiltonians: specifically, independent control over distance dependence, Ising vs XY interactions, and spin-1/2 vs spin1 particles. Additionally, I demonstrate the measurement capabilities we have developed for observing ground state ordering, dynamics of nonequilibrium states, spectroscopic energy information, and certain specific forms of entanglement. I provide an outlook on how these techniques may be employed to investigate various many-body physics problems in the near future.