Lab Members | JILA - Exploring the Frontiers of Physics

The Rey Group

Research Associate

Raphael Kaubruegger

Raphael.Kaubruegger@colorado.edu

I earned my B.Sc and M.Sc in Austria at the University of Innsbruck. During my master's program, I visited the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, where I conducted research on neural network-inspired variational wavefunctions for quantum many-body problems under the guidance of Prof. Jan Budich.

Subsequently, I started a Ph.D. at the University of Innsbruck and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) Innsbruck, supervised by Prof. Peter Zoller. My Ph.D. research centered on the application of variational quantum algorithms in the field of quantum metrology. The aim was to optimize parameterized quantum circuits for the generation of entangled states, such as squeezed states, and to enable measurements in an entangled measurement basis.

At the beginning of 2024, I joined Prof. Ana Maria Rey's group at JILA with the aim of developing innovative protocols for the quantum platforms being developed at JILA.

David Wellnitz

Graduate Student

Sanaa Agarwal

Sanaa.Agarwal@colorado.edu

I graduated from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani) in Rajasthan, India with a double-major in Physics and Mechanical Engineering in 2019. I joined CU Boulder as a graduate student in 2019 and joined Prof. Rey's group in the summer of 2020. I am currently working towards understanding the effects of dipole-dipole interactions in multi-level atoms and drawing comparisons with the widely-studied case of two-level atoms in optical lattices. The understanding of light-matter interactions in these systems is pertinent to experiments involving alkaline-earth atoms with hyperfine levels and a degenerate ground-state manifold.

Edwin Chaparro

Yongju Hai

Yongju.Hai@colorado.edu

I received my B.Sc. and M.Sc. in physics at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, and subsequently joined the group as a Ph.D. student in 2023 Fall.

My interest lies in the intersection of quantum information physics and its practical applications in AMO and solid-state systems. I am excited about the controllability and versatility offered by the cold atom system to uncover new insights into many-body phenomena and enable novel applications such as precision metrology. I am currently working on manipulating many-body dipole-dipole interactions in optical lattice clocks, aiming to understand and leverage their intricate effects.

Conall McCabe

Conall.McCabe@colorado.edu

I graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a B.A in Theoretical Physics in 2020, writing my thesis on solving spin systems using bethe ansatz methods. I obtained my M.Sc in Theoretical Physics from Ludwig-Maximilians University and the Technical University of Munich in Germany. I wrote my master thesis in the group of Fabian Grusdt on a proposal to simulate lattice gauge theories using neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezers. I joined the Rey group in the fall of 2023 as a PhD student.

My current research studies how the dynamics of multilevel atoms trapped in optical lattices can be used to improve metrological protocols through entanglement generation.

I am also interested in engineering qubit operations using the motional degrees of freedom of neutral atoms in optical tweezers.

Haoqing Zhang

Haoqing.Zhang@colorado.edu

I earned my B.Sc in Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2020. Subsequently, I started my Ph.D in Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder in fall 2020, and joined Professor Rey's research group one year later. My research interests are centered around quantum simulation and meteorology utilizing highly tunable quantum many-body systems. Currently, I am focused on the Hamiltonian engineering of quantum spin models using matter wave interferometers with cavity QED systems.