The manner in which complex quantum matter organizes evades elucidation. More than an esoteric problem, the lack of a first-principles description of this physics impedes our ability to deterministically design the transformational materials necessary for next-generation technology. To enhance our understanding of quantum matter, we are working to construct "quantum simulators" out of the coldest objects in the known universe, quantum gases of atoms. We will describe this new direction in quantum physics and how it may be applied to dissipation-less power grids and advanced "neural" networks for social network analysis.

About the speaker: Benjamin Lev received his Bachelors degree Magna Cum Laude from Princeton in 1999 and his Ph.D. from Caltech in 2005, both in Physics. He was an NRC postdoc at JILA (2006-2007), and an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2008-2011) before joining the Stanford faculty as an Assistant Professor of Applied Physics and Physics in 2011. Benjamin has received a Packard Fellowship and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) as well as NSF CAREER, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, DARPA, and Office of Navy Research young investigator awards. His research focuses on exploring strongly correlated, topological, and quantum soft matter using cavity QED, cryogenic atom chip microscopes, and quantum degenerate gases of exotic dipolar atoms.