JOŽEF STEFAN INSTITUTE
Department of Complex Matter
Jamova cesta 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Dynamics of Quantum matter

We explore non-equilibrium many-body dynamics in quantum systems that experience symmetry-breaking, topological, or jamming transitions. These systems encompass superconductors, charge-density wave, and magnetic materials.

Experimental Soft Matter Physics

The research is conducted within the “Light and Matter” research program. The interaction of light with matter is one of the most important fields of physics and optical processes are indispensable in many branches of modern industry.

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March 25, 2025
At the opening of the 33. Days of Jožef Stefan, Dragan Mihailović presented a lecture on the self-organization of quantum systems. He discussed how symmetry, topology, causality, and space-time fluctuations shape the ...
Home / Events / Stirring the false vacuum via interacting quantized bubbles on a 5564-qubit quan…

Stirring the false vacuum via interacting quantized bubbles on a 5564-qubit quantum annealer

June 17, 2025, 15:00, Physics Seminar Room
Speaker: Jaka Vodeb, Department of Complex Matter, Jožef Stefan Institute

False vacuum decay – the transition from a metastable quantum state to a true vacuum state – plays an important role in quantum field theory and non-equilibrium phenomena such as phase transitions and dynamical metastability. The non-perturbative nature of false vacuum decay and the limited experimental access to this process make it challenging to study, leaving several open questions regarding how true vacuum bubbles form, move, and interact. Here, we observe quantized bubble formation in real time, a key feature of false vacuum decay dynamics, using a quantum annealer with 5564 superconducting flux qubits. We develop an effective model that captures both the initial bubble creation and subsequent interactions, and remains accurate under dissipation. The annealer reveals coherent scaling laws in the driven many-body dynamics for more than 1000 intrinsic qubit time units. This work provides a method for investigating false vacuum dynamics of large quantum systems in quantum annealers.