Henrik Johannesson: projects

My research interest spans a number of problems and puzzles in the field of strongly correlated
quantum matter. While all matter is quantum matter, in the everyday world quantum effects are
erased by information loss into a thermal environment. Instead, quantum matter reveals its true
character in the new worlds that can now be created in laboratories. These worlds exhibit properties
that seem strange to us, in particular when dominated by strong correlation effects, making individual
particles behave as if forming a quantum collective. The failure of "text book" physics to account for
this phenomenon presents an outstanding challenge to the theorist. The need to come up with new
concepts and mathematical techniques is shared with other fundamental areas of Physics, but the rich
backdrop of experiments sets it apart.

In recent work, in a collaboration with Radmehr Jafari (IASBS), Abdollah Langari (Sharif University),
and Sebastian Eggert (University of Kaiserslautern), I have explored how noise impacts the dynamical
quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) in the quantum Ising chain. Depending on the noise amplitude and
correlation time, as well as the rate of energy transfer during the quench that triggers a DQPT, we find that
the presence of noise may have dramatic effects on the character and very presence of the phase transitions.