Quantum Simulation and Sensing with Photon-Mediated Interactions

Photons bouncing back and forth many times between highly reflecting mirrors provide a powerful method to mediate interactions between laser-cooled atoms held between the mirrors. In this pedagogical lecture, I will use simple physical pictures to describe how these interactions emerge and can be flexibly crafted. This will be followed by high lighting the broad range of physics that can be explored in these systems including ultra-narrow linewidth superradiant lasers, entanglement-enhanced matterwave interferometers and clocks, and simulations of quench dynamics in BCS superconductors.