Quantum Magnetism with Synthetic Matter

Synthetic quantum matter of laser cooled atoms offers a unique possibility to investigate quantum many-body physics with a level of control that is not possible in conventional condensed matter systems. In this talk, I will give a broad overview of cold atomic systems, in particular trapped atomic ions in the context of investigating quantum magnetism. The phonon mediated spin interactions in the trapped ion system can be tailored to probe a variety of spin Hamiltonians with control over the sign, magnitude, and range of couplings. In addition, individual spin states can be detected with near perfection. These capabilities and the long quantum coherence time make the trapped ion system an ideal quantum simulator, or special purpose quantum computer, to investigate quantum magnetism. I will describe ways in which this system can simulate fully connected spin networks for studying (computationally hard) problems in spin glass physics.