Q-FARM Spotlight

Yosheb Getachew is majoring in Physics and Mathematics, class of 2022.

Describe a project you're currently working on

I will be working on an experimental and numerical project this summer, both in the multimodal cavity QED experiment in the Lev Lab. The goal of the experimental project is to control internal spin degrees of freedom of atoms in an optically trapped BEC via microwave pulse Ramsey interferometry for greater coherent experimental spin readout. My contributions will consist of constructing electronics and device fabrication for use in the interferometer setup. 

The objective of the numerical project is to distinguish if distinct energy landscapes corresponding to different configurations of Ising spin glasses exhibit locally convex behavior in the pursuit of realizing associative memory within an artificial neural network composed of atomic spin nodes coupled by photons in the multimodal cavity. Throughout this project I will leverage numerical tools developed by the lab and myself to simulate different spin glass energy landscapes, exploring if the basins of attraction of metastable states permit associative memory. 

How did you become interested in this research area?

I developed an interest in quantum during my undergraduate studies, through exposure to canonical "frontier fields" in physics. I began pursuing physics and mathematics my sophomore year at Stanford (I was originally a prospective chemistry major), and I would say it was the unintuitive yet irrefutable conclusions that quantum makes that greatly attracted me to the field. I loved that to understand quantum, one must rely on math, and this dependence elicits knowledge external to anything we could comprehend within our limited ability to interact with the world. Also, I have always also been somewhat of a fundamentalist, and our perspective of our universe doesn't get much more granular than when we approach it quantum mechanically. 

What other activities are you involved with on campus?

I am an Officer for the Stanford Quantum Computing Association and Math and Physics Tutor for the Center of Teaching and Learning.