BIO: Diego Dalvit is a staff scientist at the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory. He earned a PhD in Physics from University of Buenos Aires (1998), was a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at LANL (1999-2001), and became a permanent staff at LANL in 2002. He is an APS Fellow for his work on Casimir physics, and APS Outstanding Referee. His research interests are in quantum optics, quantum sensing, Casimir physics, and metamaterials. He published 2 books, 2 patents, 3 review papers, and >110 research papers, with total citations > 8400 and h-index of 47. He leads the quantum optics theory team at Los Alamos, that involves staff, postdocs and students working on various topics, ranging from space-time quantum metasurfaces to remote quantum sensing.

In my lectures I will present the different techniques and approaches used to first construct mechanical transducers able to shed light on potential interactions, and then how working in the quantum regime, where k_B T<< ℏΩ (where Ω is the characteristic frequency of the mechanical oscillator), allows for a better detection. Characteristic fundamental and technical limiting factors will be described, and current and future methods to mitigate the interaction of the mechanical system with the environment will be presented and discussed.

BIO: Ricardo Decca (Department of Physics, Indiana University Indianapolis, USA) Ricardo Decca, Professor and Chair in the Department of Physics at Indiana University Indianapolis, got his “Licenciatura” (a989) and PhD (1994) degrees from Instituto Balseiro, Argentina. He was a postdoc at the University of Maryland, USA, and in 2000 he became an Assistant Professor at Indiana University Indianapolis (then Indian University-Purdue University Indianapolis). He is co-director of the Nanoscale Imaging Center, and a founding member of the Indiana University Center for Space Symmetries (IUCSS) and the Indiana University Quantum Science and Engineering Center (QSEc), and the campus director for the Center for Quantum Technologies (CQT), a consortium between Purdue University, Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. As a member of the American Physical Society, he he was elected a fellow in 2015 for his pioneering precision experiments in the fields of Casimir physics and new fundamental interactions. His work revolves around finding new approaches to measure feeble interactions between bodies. He uses a battery of approaches to achieve that goal, centered around scanning probes, and development of new experimental techniques.

Cavity resonators are essential to adapt and improve interactions between photons, two-level systems, and vibrations. In this context, two important areas represent, on the one hand, systems with strong light-matter coupling, which leads to cavity exciton polaritons, and on the other hand, cavity optomechanics, which has allowed the demonstration of dynamical backaction phenomena in the interaction between light and vibrations. In the field of polaritonics, Bose-Einstein condensates of these strongly interacting quasi-particles (“light fluids”) have been demonstrated. In cavity optomechanics some milestones represent laser cooling to the quantum limit, and the stimulated emission of hypersound. Traditionally, these two areas have had little overlap, although their cross-fertilization represents a challenge that promises paradigmatic shifts in the control and applications of light-matter interactions. In these introductory talks I will describe what these fields are and how, on the one hand, polaritons enhance interactions between photons and phonons and, on the other hand, phonons confined in these resonators introduce novel and controllable dynamics in polaritonic Bose-Einstein condensates. Phenomena such as piezoelectric control of optical resonances at GHz frequencies, stimulated phonon emission, asynchronous locking of optical resonances, access to strong photon-exciton-phonon coupling phenomena as a path for microwave-light frequency conversion, spatio-temporal modulation to induce non-reciprocal transport, and the demonstration of continuous time crystals, are some of the consequences of combining photons, excitons, and phonons in semiconductor resonators.
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BIO: He is a member of the Photonics & Optoelectronics Group formed at the CAB, a researcher at CNEA (National Atomic Energy Commission), Full Professor at the Balseiro Institute, and Senior Researcher at CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council). He is internationally recognized for research related to light and sound confinement in nano and micro semiconductor structures, as well as ultra-sensitive optical detection of molecules. He has supervised 10 doctoral theses and over a dozen master’s theses. He has published more than 180 papers in international journals and has given approximately 60 Invited Lectures at International Forums. He was a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Max Planck Society of Germany, and an Associate Researcher at CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) in France. He is a member of the National Academy of Exact, Physical, and Natural Sciences. He has been honored as a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation (2001); received the Bernardo Houssay Prize from SECyT (Science and Technology Secretary) and the Merit Award from the Municipal Council of San Carlos de Bariloche (2003); received the Scientific Quality Award Dra. Elizabeth Jares-Erijman from FAN (Argentine Foundation for Nature) in 2012, and the Konex Award in 2013.

BIO:  Rosario Fazio received his PhD in Physics in 1990 at the University of Catania. He held the chair of theoretical condesed matter at SISSA – Trieste (2005 – 2008) and at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (2008 – 2019). He is currently Head of the Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics Section of the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics (Trieste) and Professor of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Naples “Federico II”. He is the Director of the Institute for Quantum Theoretical Technologies of Trieste. His reseach interests are in theoretical condensed matter and quantum information processing focusing on quantum transport in nano-devices, mesoscopic superconductivity, quantum simulators, quantum information & many-body systems, open many-body systems.

BIO: Tracy Northup is a Professor at the Institute of Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck. Her research focuses on using optical cavities and trapped ions as tools to explore quantum-mechanical interactions between light and matter, with applications for quantum networks and sensors. Her research team currently consists of six PhD students, three postdoctoral researchers, and two master’s students. The team works on quantum information transfer between remote ions mediated by photons; simulations of solid-state phenomena with ions in cavities; and quantum optomechanics with levitated nano-spheres.

BIO: Oriol Romero-Isart is, since May 2024, an ICREA professor and group leader at ICFO (Barcelona) and future director of the Institute starting from September 2024. Romero-Isart obtained his doctorate from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2008. After a postdoctoral stint at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Munich with Ignacio Cirac, he moved to Innsbruck to start his own research group in 2013. There, he was a professor at the University of Innsbruck, group leader at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) Innsbruck, and deputy director of IQOQI. His research group focuses on topics in the fields of theoretical quantum optics and mesoscopic quantum physics in the context of quantum science and technology.

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