Programmable Non-Local Interactions: Towards Fast Scrambling with Cold Atoms

The quest to build and probe toy models of quantum gravity in table-top experiments presents a new frontier for the field of quantum simulation. One challenge is to simulate fast scrambling of quantum information in black holes, for which a key requirement is to engineer a quantum system with a non-local graph of interactions. I will report on advances in control of non-local interactions in experiments with cold atoms. By coupling the atoms to light in an optical resonator, we generate tunable non-local Heisenberg interactions, which we characterize by imaging the resulting phases and dynamics. Notable observations include interaction-based protection of spin coherence and photon-mediated spin-mixing, a mechanism for generating correlated atom pairs. I will present recent results on optically programming the distance-dependence of the spin-spin couplings, with prospects for studying fast scrambling and for accessing treelike (p-adic) geometries akin to hyperbolic space.