Quantum Optics Theory
at The University of Sydney
Welcome to the website of the Quantum Optics Theory Group at The University Sydney! As our name suggests, we are a quantum optics theory group working at The University of Sydney in the School of Physics. The group is led by Sahand Mahmoodian who is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow.
Our research is chiefly focused on understanding quantum many-body phenomena in quantum optical systems. These systems can be used to create new quantum states of light which can be useful for quantum technologies.
Our group develops and uses theoretical and numerical methods to understand and exploit quantum optics systems composed of many atoms. We work closely with experimental groups around the world to realise new quantum states of light, and new quantum many-body physics with photons. We are interested in answering fundamental physics questions in quantum optics and using our understanding in this area to help build new quantum technologies. For more information see our Research page
Our group is located at The University of Sydney, Australia’s oldest University. It has a beautiful campus and is located in one of the most beautiful cities in the world!
We are part of the larger Quantum-Theory group in the School of Physics.
News
October 2025Josh and Hugo's paper in collaboration with Ben Fulcher is published in Phys. Rev. Research! See paper here.
August 2025Yangming's paper on modelling non-Gaussian photon states in atomic ensembles is now on arXiv. You can have a look at the paper here. Congrats Yangming!
July 2025Yangming and Noe's paper on modelling three-photon transport in atomic ensembles is now on arXiv. You can have a look at the paper here. Congrats Yangming and Noe!
January 2024James Locke starts his honour's project on tensor network techniques for waveguide QED.
December 2024Jacky's paper is posted on arXiv! You can have a look at the paper here. Congrats Jacky!
December 2024Paper on phases of optically deep atomic ensembles in collaboration with colleagues in Germany and Italy posted to arxiv. You can read it here.
December 2024Paper on time-series analysis using matrix-product states is now on arxiv. You can read it here. This was done in collaboration with colleagues in Complex Systems here at the School of Physics. Congratulations to Josh and Hugo for their excellent effort on this project! We have also released a software package MPSTime available here.
December 2023Paper on directional terahertz emission in photonic crystals published in ACS Photonics. This was a collaboration with the THz photonics group in the School of Physics. You can view the paper here.
August 2023Alexander Johnston joins our group as a postdoctoral researcher! Welcome Alex!