Doing Atomic Physics with Electrical Circuits: Strong Coupling Cavity QED Steven M. Girvin, Department of Physics and Applied Physics, Yale University

Recent experimental breakthroughs have led to the construction of artificial superconducting 'atoms': electrical circuit elements whose state variables (voltages and currents) are intrinsically quantum mechanical. When placed inside a high Q resonator, these 'atoms' can strongly interact with single microwave photons. Tests of this new realization of strong-coupling cavity QED are now underway in the lab of Rob Schoelkopf at Yale. This talk will give an introduction to these remarkable experimental developments and discuss some of the related theoretical issues that they open up.