BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:Icfo X-PUBLISHED-TTL:P1W BEGIN:VEVENT UID:69ee030eb78dc DTSTART:20220628T080000Z SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE LOCATION:ICFO Auditorium and Online (Teams) SUMMARY:ICFO | SERGI JULIÀ FARRÉ CLASS:PUBLIC DESCRIPTION:The last decades have witnessed impressive technical advances i n all the fields of quantum science\, including solid-state systems or ato mic\, molecular\, and optical physics\, allowing one to control materials at the microscopic scale with a high degree of precision. This development opens the road for the investigation of complex many-body phenomena in qu antum materials\, which cannot be easily inferred from the behavior of the ir individual constituents. Indeed\, interactions in quantum many-body sys tems can lead to richer physics compared to the noninteracting case\, as t hey are deeply connected with spontaneous symmetry breaking\, quantum corr elations\, i.e.\, entanglement\, and some collective behaviors.\nOn the on e hand\, in some cases\, the motivation to study such interacting systems is the possibility to synthesize them in the lab\, such as for instance wi th cold atoms in optical lattices. The latter platform can be used as a qu antum simulator of systems that were regarded just as toy models in the la st century\, as it is the case of topological insulators: materials charac terized by a global topological invariant leading to protected surface mod es. While so far experiments have concentrated their efforts on engineerin g noninteracting topological insulators\, state-of-the art techniques can also be used to study the role of interactions in these systems.\nIn this context\, the first goal of this thesis is \; to investigate novel eff ects in interaction-induced topological insulators. In the one-dimensional case\, we reveal the topological nature of fermionic chains with frustrat ed interactions\, which could be realized with dipolar quantum gases. For the two-dimensional case\, we focus on topological Mott insulators\, for w hich we propose an experimental scheme based on Rydberg-dressed atoms. Fur thermore\, we show that these systems can exhibit rich spatial features in tertwined with their topological protection\, owing to the interacting nat ure of the phase.\nOn the other hand\, there are some paradigmatic cases\, as in high-Tc superconductors\, where exotic experimental results clearly point towards the need of finding a microscopic model in a many-body inte racting framework. In the particular case of high-Tc superconductors\, the ir complex composition and unknown exact form of intrinsic interactions ma ke it challenging to characterize their rich phase diagram: such materials not only host a high-Tc superconducting phase\, but also other exotic pha ses\, such as the strange metal or pseudogap phases. In this regard\, the second goal of this thesis is to gain physical insight of the pseudogap ph ase of cuprate high-Tc superconductors. To this aim\, we numerically study the effect of interactions between electrons and bond phonons within a pa rticular Hamiltonian modeling of the system. We show that\, by properly ac counting for the subtle interplay between electron-electron and electron-p honon interactions\, one can indeed numerically reproduce the main experim ental features of the pseudogap phase.\nFinally\, the study of collective interaction-induced effects is also needed to analyze the quantum advantag e theoretically claimed for some systems. In particular\, many-body intera ctions and entanglement are sometimes regarded as a resource for quantum t hermodynamic machines: devices that perform tasks related to refrigeration \, heat-to-work conversion\, or energy storage. On this basis\, the third goal of this thesis is to study fundamental bounds imposed by quantum mech anics to collective charging effects in systems for energy storage\, calle d quantum batteries.\n \;\nThesis Director: Prof. Dr. Maciej Lewenstei n DTSTAMP:20260426T122030Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR