Seminar - Emily Bean and Wiliiam Munizzi, UCLA

Two Quantum Frontiers: axion quasiparticles and quantum resources

1. The magnetoelectric response in condensed matter systems has been linked to the physics of the axion, a hypothetical particle proposed to resolve the strong CP problem in QCD and now considered a leading dark matter candidate. While QCD axions remain undetected, topological materials can host condensed matter analogues where the usual quantized axion response is promoted to a dynamical field by spontaneous symmetry breaking, though an unambiguous signature of these analogue axions is highly nontrivial. We recently laid the theoretical foundation for a pump–probe protocol for dynamical axion quasiparticle detection, validated in MnBi₂Te₄, and further extend this framework to dark-matter detection and to topological platforms with emergent curved spacetimes. This engineering of light-matter interactions lays groundwork for simulating high energy theories in solid-state platforms.

2. Entanglement and magic are complementary resources that determine the power of quantum computation. Entanglement admits a geometric description via entropy vectors, constrained by entropy inequalities, while quantum magic, a key resource for quantum supremacy, provides an additional classification on states and plays a crucial role in identifying entropy inequality violation. We present an operator-level protocol for bounding the dynamics of entanglement and magic, along with a machine learning approach to identify states with targeted resource properties and construct efficient preparation circuits. This framework yields explicit bounds on resource variation, offering insights into computational limits and guiding algorithm design with customizable information-theoretic features. Our results also strengthen the link between quantum information, emergent phenomena, and high-energy physics.